HTC Vive launches multi-million dollar VR art scheme

HTC Vive has launched Vive Arts, a multi-million dollar virtual reality program designed to change the way the world creates and engages with the arts.

The global initiative will see Vive support the content, creators and institutions that embrace the new medium of VR, and will help to fund and develop VR installations.

Vive has already partnered with the Royal Academy of Arts in London, the National Palace Museum in Taipei and the French National Museum of Natural History in Paris, among others.

Its next project will be for the Tate Modern’s upcoming exhibition, Modigliani, which opens in London later this month and includes an integrated VR experience for gallery-goers.

“With the launch of Vive Arts, we are driving Virtual Reality’s influence in art and providing access to our world’s cultural heritage,” said Joel Breton, vice president, Vive Studios.

“We are empowering artists to create, and consumers to experience and interpret, art and culture in new ways.”

Frances Morris, director of the Tate Modern, said: “We are always looking to push creative boundaries and we think this will be a fantastic opportunity to give the public a different and in-depth understanding of this much-loved artist through new technology.”

Vive is a virtual reality platform, built and optimised for room-scale VR. Users can experience this via HTC Vive headsets and the Viveport app store, and the platform is supported by the Vive Studios development hub and Vive X, a US$100 million accelerator for VR and related technology start-ups.

Speaking at IBC in September,HTC’s senior vice-president of VR, Rikard Steiber, predicted virtual reality will “change the world” as he outlined a number of technological innovations happening in this space.

HTC is due to launch a new standalone Vive headset before the end of this year, which will not require a mobile phone or need to be tethered to a high-powered PC.