BASMOCA is a Metaverse, based on Virtual Worlds Technology, in which people interact in a 3D cyberspace that uses the metaphor of the real world but without its physical limitations.
It is a museum, but so much more than that; it is a place where people anywhere in the world can come together, in Avatar form, to look at art and exchange ideas and information, in a real life setting, regardless of age, gender, ethnic, cultural or socio-economic identities.
In a time of myriad barriers and boundaries, virtual worlds are a tool with which to disseminate art and culture. BASMOCA uses cutting-edge technology to bring a contemporary art collection into the minds and the lives of as many people as are interested and inspired to explore this new space.
To augment people’s physical wants with such virtual riches is a way for us to discover what we really need, what feeds our hearts and our minds. If we want to look at and think about art, and for that experience to be as real as possible but without the difficulties imposed by time and geographical location, we can now do so. This is a new place to be, a revolutionary mode of thought and existence, that frees us from our everyday limitations.
The BASMOCA virtual gallery is a pioneering example of using this technology, efficiently and effectively, to disseminate art and culture.
It is the only Virtual Gallery of its kind to showcase a real-life collection.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Owner and Founder: Basma Al Sulaiman
Curator: Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris
Business Development: Victoria Poniatowski
Art Critic and Writer: Rebecca Tanqueray
Website design: Oops!Agency SARL
Virtual Museum Development: White Feather Technologies S.L.
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BASMOCA'S CURRENT SHOW "Shared thoughts" curated by institut du monde arabe in Paris
Artists’ perception of the world embraces all aspects of life. As actors in civil society, they participate in public debates by questioning society on an individual and collective level. Hence, their work reflects their own experiences and the collective consciousness of society. There has been a close link between art and political, urban, and societal issues throughout the course of history. And this is still the case in an increasingly open world and environments that are being increasingly questioned by their populations, in terms of their relationship with others, freedom, modernity, and tradition; a close look at art can reveal much about a society’s characteristics and its relationship with the world.
In environments that are subject to urban gatherings, ultra-modernism, and the extension of the production of images and thoughts, art is an expression of shared experiences. The artistic themes tackled by artists in Asia and the Arab world, where social, political, religious, and cultural structures are undergoing a process of reorganisation, are in their own particular way a part of the upheavals that the world is experiencing. The works in the Basmoca collection presented in the exhibition ‘Shared Thoughts’ adopt a perceptive and documentary approach. Organised around themes that structure contemporary societies, they offer a comparative view of the East and West.