How would you describe your company culture?

– Gigoia Studios belongs to the Serious Games segment. It is focused on Art education through interactive media like Virtual Reality and games for museums, schools, workshops and customized virtual art galleries.

How did you guys get into VR ?

– Well, VR tech is quickly getting better each day. As we focus on education, we work on solutions to bring the young generation closer to the art world with a new approach. Visitors inevitably generate real sensorial perceptions in visiting an art space and museums which are sacred places. Of course to look at art in real life is and will always be an amazing and unique experience. However, virtual reality can help extend some visual and auditive stimuli and add layers of information. The combination of layers of information, ambient sound, animation, connectivity, and accessibility is really awesome!

Concentrating on the arts field, we believe that VR is a fantastic way to create and communicate art. “It is information being shared at a higher level with new possibilities.” For example, many people can’t go to a museum or an art center for some reason, so VR provides an alternative way to make up for their loss. Some people have never gone to a gallery or a museum to look at art in person. Therefore, maybe their first contact with a historical artwork or contemporary art can be through VR.

What is it like working with you guys? 

– The usual process of creating a virtual reality art gallery tour is divided into several steps. First the team does research about art galleries space conditions, sizes, proportions and lighting. Then they model the 3D virtual architectural structures. The artworks are digitized and carefully placed inside the virtual 3D world. To recreate a 3D environment from a 2D painting, a lot of historical research is needed. For “The Song of Love”, and SURREALISTa for example, we did an extensive 3-year study about Giorgio de Chirico’s life and work such as the metaphysical and surreal themes, the architectural point-of-view he painted, the color palette and its style. The next step was to construct all the nitty-gritties in 3D and the surroundings which are not apparent in the original artwork. We filled those spaces based on places from other Giorgio’s paintings and pieces of information available.

If you were to speculate freely. What sort of VR experiences do you think we will see in the future?

– Well, I believe people will be fully immersive into Virtual Reality, with almost all five senses being stimulated. I believe we will have a truly alternate life, doing virtual business, virtual money and more. Virtual life will be very important or maybe crucial to sustaining the real life, because real life will adapt itself to connect with the virtual life. It’s an ecosystem.

What is it about VR that gets you excited?

– I experienced basically a lot of VR headsets and games, films, simulations, etc. I liked so much to spend some hours in VR world. My brain and mind didn’t bother at all or got stressed quickly.
I get amazed at that because VR is just getting right, the hardware evolution is in a good way, and the day will come we can spend more time in virtual worlds.