About

The Digital Exhibitions Toolkit and Art Installation Launcher (DETAIL) is a collection of plugins, templates, and workflows to facilitate the exhibition of digital art on digital platforms. As part of our commitment to fostering digital arts, and cultivating their access through responsive relationships, the MacKenzie Art Gallery has been developing DETAIL as a free and open-source resource since 2021. DETAIL is developed through a series of real-world digital exhibition case studies both within the MacKenzie and with our partner organizations. 

DETAIL aims to make digital art exhibitions easier for organizations and curators to support, through its collection of tried-and-tested resources. It includes support for a variety of digital art formats across desktop, mobile, online browser-based, and virtual reality platforms. DETAIL prioritizes digital-first access, but its resources can easily be adapted for in-person interactive experiences.  
 
The MacKenzie Art Gallery is releasing DETAIL in late 2024 through its educational partnerships and on the Gallery’s website. Resources are currently available in early access and can be explored in the DETAIL Resource Links menu. To learn more about the project or to provide feedback on early access tools, contact Gallery Digital Exhibitions consultants Cat Bluemke cbluemke@mackenzie.art and Jonathan Carroll jcarroll@mackenzie.art.

DETAIL Resource Links

Click here for early access to the GitHub link.

Link coming soon.

Click here to access the platform guide.

Click here for more resources.

Case Studies

DETAIL is developed through an iterative design and implementation process, with real-world use cases and contemporary digital artists and curators providing feedback throughout the process. DETAIL has been used in three official case studies within the MacKenzie and through our partner organizations. These exhibitions include support and access for virtual reality headsets, desktop, web browsers, and augmented reality for mobile 

Echoes From the Future: Speculative Creatures & Post-Human Botanicals 29 June – 27 September 2023

The project Echoes from the Future: Speculative Creatures & Post-Human Botanicals  was a virtual exhibition experienced through virtual reality headsets, Windows, and Mac computers. It featured an open-world navigation system for multi-user synchronous experience. With support for voice, audio, and audience avatars, audiences could join artists and curators within the exhibition whether tuning in from their home computers or virtual reality headsets. Curated by Tina Sauerlaender for the MacKenzie Art Gallery, Echoes from the Future featured eight Canadian and international artists. The exhibition renders current environmental issues visible in virtual reality, inviting audiences into an immersive alternative future for hybrid lifeforms. 

The unique virtual experience immersed audiences in an alternative future inhabited by hybrid lifeforms, both online and through an in-person Virtual Reality (VR) access point installed at the gallery. Featuring a diverse range of media including painting, interactive augmented reality, and animated 3D objects and video, the featured artists—Aviv Benn (ISR/UK), Laura Colmenares Guerra (COL/BE), Reiner Maria Matysik (DE), Sarah Oh-Mock (DE), Bianca Shonee Arroyo-Kreimes (CAN), Sabrina Ratté (CAN), and Tamiko Thiel (US/DE)—unpack the devastating impact of environmental degradation and speculate on future lifeforms. 

THERE IS NO CENTRE 23 February – 24 May 2023

THERE IS NO CENTRE was a browser-based virtual exhibition featuring seven artworks installed as “levels” that were accessed through a continuous navigation system influenced by hub-and-spoke game design. Inspired by the magic circle concept, this framing invites viewers to explore and engage with the art pieces in a game-like environment.

In adopting the first-person player perspective, THERE IS NO CENTRE considered the accepted norms and familiar mechanics of contemporary video gaming, such as choice-based moments, goal-less exploration, and even “loot boxes.” This approach enables a meta-awareness of the medium specificity of online exhibitions. By allowing each artwork to exist, per the “Magic Circle,” in its own “separate and special place,” viewers become more immersed in artworks spanning various practices, including video games, memes, 3D sculptures, VR landscapes, and video art. 

Curated by Katie Micak for the MacKenzie Art Gallery, the exhibit featureds works by Thoreau Bakker (CA), Milumbe Haimbe (CA/ZM), Elizabeth LaPensée (US) and Weshoyot Alvitre (US) (et al.), Adrienne Matheuszik (CA), Tom Sherman (US/CA), Fallon Simard (CA), and Xuan Ye (CA/CN). 

 

Hypercity November 2022 – March 2023

Hypercity is an ongoing, geolocated Augmented Reality (AR) art exhibition for iOS and Android devices. A collaboration between Toronto-based arts organization Long Winter and MacKenzie Art Gallery Digital Exhibitions Consultants Cat Bluemke and Jonathan Carroll (as SpekWork Studio), the Hypercity project spanned both a virtual residency and exhibition. The site-specific artwork can still be experienced by audiences in its intended Toronto locations.  

This exhibition features artworks using integrated machines, monsters, medicine, riots and speculative fictions into augmented reality experiences delivered through the audience’s personal mobile devices. Curated by Mitra, the residency enabled emerging artists Cassraa (CA/IR), Cheyenne Rain LeGrande ᑭᒥᐊᐧᐣ (CA), Malik McKoy (CA), Vasuki Shanmuganathan (CA) and Shonee (CA) to develop AR practices in conversation with commissioned works by artists hiba ali (CA/US), Casey Koyczan (CA), and Linda Zhang (CA). The site-specific artworks gesture at the subversiveness and precarity of street art practices as they invite participants to intervene and dream in Toronto’s fraught public spaces.  

The exhibition is currently available, with site-specific augmented reality experiences set in Toronto. See the Hypercity website for download links, exhibition map, and artist interviews.  

Connect

Stay updated about the development of the toolkit by joining the MacKenzie’s Discord server. Artists, curators and organizations interested in early access can email cbluemke@mackenzie.art  Be sure to sign up for the MacKenzie’s newsletter to be notified of the toolkit’s release and its pilot exhibitions.  

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