Virtual Reality Makes Hirshhorn Museum Infinity Mirrors Exhibit Accessible For Wheelchair Users
The problem, though, is the exhibit isn’t accessible for visitors in wheelchairs. People moving through the exhibit have to go through 30-inch doorways and onto narrow platforms (less than four feet wide), according to the Washington Post. And the 180-degree turn that the Americans With Disabilities Act dictates people in wheelchairs must be able to make inside a room just isn’t possible.
Ultimately, the engineer digitally recreated the room as it appears to visitors in real life — without designing actual mirrors, but rather the illusion of mirrors (like black lines where the seams between each mirror would be).
The museum has six Samsung virtual reality headsets available to visitors with disabilities (only people who can’t physically go through the actual exhibit are allowed to use them), and Drew Doucette, who oversees multimedia and technology initiatives at the Hirshhorn, told Washington Post he believes virtual reality “has a home in museums now.”
See the full story here: http://www.teenvogue.com/story/hirshhorn-museum-virtual-reality-yayoi-kusama-infinity-room