The Israeli artist, who studied in New York, developed the project for her Master’s degree at ITP (Tisch School of Arts) at NYU. The Oculus Rift headset allows visitors a new virtual experience, discovering the FBI’s and Interpol’s most wanted works of art which were previously stolen or looted. Ziv Schneider is the mastermind behind bringing the latest technology together with lost treasures. The museum currently holds three exhibitions: “The looting of Afghanistan”, “The Looting of Iraq” and “Famous Stolen Paintings”.
“Famous Stolen Paintings” features paintings stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990, when artworks by Flemish painters Rembrandt and Vermeer, as well as French painter Degas, were stolen amounting to an estimated value of $500 million, totaling 13 paintings.
Ziv Schneider here explains the idea began and her methods used to create the representations of the missing works of art in 3D.
How did this idea of combining a museum and stolen artwork begin?
Ziv Schneider: Stumbling upon the Interpol website, with its databases of wanted criminals, missing persons and also art theft, I found the connection between art and crime fascinating. I also learned about the war related issues that arise in Iraq and Afghanistan for example. The information in this database is very interesting and important but it is presented in a very dry layout and I felt like it could be shown to the public in a more engaging way. At ITP, I had a class this semester called "Cabinets of Wonder" about the past, present and future of museums. For the final project, we were challenged to create our own museum. I decided to dedicate a museum to the subject of stolen art, and play with the idea of creating a virtual space for objects with virtual existence.
How did you set about in your mission to recreate the lost works of art over the past years?
One of the main challenges was finding information regarding the artworks stolen from Afghanistan, because they were poorly documented. Some pieces don't have a Hi-Res photo version at hand, so I had to work with whatever existed for visual representation of the piece. For some Iraqi paintings, the database had only a misspelled last name of a painter ad I had to dig the web to find more info for an audio tour. Navigating the space with the Oculus is still not perfect. I've been using a playstation controller but for the next iteration am working on a way to make it more intuitive.
Is visiting a virtual reality museum just as good as a ‘real-life’ museum?
VR can try to mimic a physical presence at a certain imaginary or non imaginary space. The way we currently view websites is not immersive in the way VR headsets are and I think it's a good opportunity to try and create experiences that make use of that capability. The Interpol database led me to read about the looting of Iraq and Afghanistan, and I think these issues of cultures disappearing and suffering from war and conflict is an issue that needs to be addressed. In Israel, I remember having an antique box carved from leather that my father stole from Lebanon as an Israeli soldier. I still have it and tend to think about its origin. Some of the artworks were looted by soldiers and could be present among us. If the public knows how to identify these pieces, they might have a better chance at being recovered.
What's H A P P E N I N G next?
I am currently improving it so that people could download it for the Oculus (it is just a student project right now), so look out for updates!
