New Impressionism Exhibit at the d'Orsay

sounds lovely. -- I hope the VR for this exhibit is better than for the van Gogh where it was laughable. The Eternelle Notre Dame VR experience is a walk through Paris around the time of the construction of the Cathedral -- if it is anything like that one it will be spectacular. We hope to be there in April/May and this is at the top of the list.

We'll be there in April. Thanks for the tip! (Actually, I see it's coming to DC after so takes the pressure off seeing it in Paris too).

Thanks for the heads up, Eric! I will hope to visit the exhibit either in Paris (the dream) or in DC (more likely). I remember seeing the Impressionism centenary exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum in NYC in 1974…

…and suddenly I feel quite old! 🤦‍♀️

@janet - you recommended the Eternelle ND VR show to me in a posting here back in 2022 … I’m 18 months late in saying THANK YOU! It was beyond phenomenal and I’m planning on seeing it again when I’m in Paris in late April. I think I’ll go to the ND venue this time to see it.
Looking forward to the Impressionism show, too.

Glad you liked it -- I did La Defense by myself because my husband is visually impaired and cannot do VR; this spring I went with a French friend to the one at Notre Dame -- same show, just more convenient venue. Loved it again.

Janet - glad to hear you enjoyed it for your 2nd visit. Looking forward to going through it again.

Edited OP to add that tickets are now on sale for this.

Wooohoooo ! I can't wait for this exhibit to open !!!

Thanks for the info. Got my ticket!!!!

Thank you, just booked tickets for the virtual reality experience.
Some critics are frowning on this type of art, diminishing the original viewing.

Ironic as the rigid rules of the times prompted the artists to stage their own salon.

I realize that this exhibition hasn't opened yet but I wonder if anyone can share what similar VR experiences have been like. Not an immersive experience like the traveling Van Gogh show (which we enjoyed immensely), but one where a headset is used.
Our family group ranges from a 23 year old to an 83 year old. Concerns have been expressed about headaches, becoming nauseated, and wondering why the museum includes a caution against people with "balance...or heart disorders". Starts to sound more like a roller coaster than a museum event. Or this just lawyer-speak, covering any and all possible problems that might arise?
Is the headset more like a helmet or goggles? Are you standing the entire time? Walking through the museum? Seated for any portion? Does the immersive experience take you thorough the gallery or prepare you for it?
Any advice or recollections will be appreciated.

I can only speak to Eternelle Notre Dame in which we walked for 45 minutes with the gear on. I have done many VR experiences where one is seated. I am 80. If you find VR nauseating then you can shut your eyes, and take the goggles off. I had to close my eyes when we zipped from one site to another on the Fly Over Paris VR near Opera that I did with my grand daughter. The rapid motion made me motion sick. I opened them again when we arrived at the ET or Notre Dame etc. I didn't have that problem with Eternelle Notre Dame but it was tiring.

The quality of VR is getting better. But some people find it difficult. there was a VR experience at our local Natural History Museum where you took a submarine into the past whizzing under water avoiding volcanos and dinosaurs -- THAT one which I took the grand kids did make me feel sick -- I only did it once.

Thanks Eric! The Orsay is my favorite and this exhibit sounds good.

I’m 63. I had to stop the virtual reality at Notre Dame because I could not handle it. I did not get a headache. I did not get nauseous. Unfortunately the virtual reality of Notre Dame takes you up to the towers to see how the towers are constructed. I cannot handle that. I literally freaked out from being up there even though I’m trying to tell myself this is not real and I’m not going to fall off this platform that has absolutely no safety rail. after the third time they drug me up in the air I took the helmet off and left. They were very nice about it. Apparently I was not the first person who just said enough, they tried to get me to walk someplace else and start over but I couldn’t take it anymore so if you are scared of heights, that is something to consider

Thanks Janettravels. When you did the Eternelle Notre Dame tour, how did you walk for 45 minutes with VR gear on? Forgive my ignorance, but I thought that Virtual Reality replaces the real reality that one is actually in. How can you walk around without seeing where you actually are?
And what was the gear like? In ads, I've seen VR gear that looks like oversized goggles but also gear with a helmet-like appearance that covers the top of the head.
I liked your advice for combatting nausea. I'll pass it on.

And thanks Carol. As it happens, I am afraid of heights. I didn't think that would come into play in "Inventing Impressionism", but it's a good heads-up for me.

The gear for the virtual reality experience for Notre Dame is housed in a backpack that is linked to the substantial headpiece that you wear.

In other words, you are wearing a computer on your back that feeds the goggles and earphones in order to create the virtual experience.

You can’t see anything real around you — you can only see the virtual reality that they have surrounded you with.

And indeed, the "virtuality" of the experience is so real that you do feel you could fall off a parapet, or that you are zipping up in the sky. Of course the Notre Dame experience is meant to take you from ground level up to the tops of the towers and within the roof, whereas presumably Nadar's exhibition space (which the Impressionism exhibit is replicating) was presumably only on one level - or at the most, two. However, it could be that the virtual Impressionism exhibit also takes you on some kind of bird's-eye view of various Impressionist paintings -- but from what I read about it, I understood it was to walk you through what it would have been like to walk through the exhibition.

P.s. for the second part of your question, as to how you walk around, the virtual experience also marks out virtual "boundaries" if you are getting to close to a wall, and other people show up virtually too in a different way than the virtual characters. You can literally walk through your virtual host, for example, but if a real person is next to you, you will see their outline so you know not to run into them.

If you go to the Notre Dame experience official website and scroll almost to the bottom page, they have a video trailer - in that, you can see a brief — VERY brief — couple of shots that show visitors wearing the gear
https://www.eternellenotredame.com/en/

And if you go to the 34-second mark of the following video, you will see what is really happening — people walking around a low-ceilinged room with the computer on their back and headset !!

https://www.francetvinfo.fr/culture/patrimoine/histoire/eternelle-notre-dame-l-experience-immersive-inedite-pour-decouvrir-l-histoire-de-la-cathedrale-du-moyen-age-a-nos-jours_4915375.html

(You can also see in that video a computerized human form, “Ludovic,” which shows what a physical person next to you looks like, and at about 1:40 in the video, you can see people walking along “climbing” over an obstacle!)

Both videos also give an idea of what it’s like walking on the edge, looking down, getting whisked up to the towers, etc.

The videos give a sense of how realistic the experience is, but they don’t show how you literally can look around to 360 degrees all around you, and the experience is completely detailed all around — up to the highest skies, behind you, in front of you . . It’s truly mind-boggling at least in the case of the Notre Dame VR exhibit.

Thanks Kim. Those videos were excellent. They resulted in 100% buy-in from our group.

Glad they were helpful !

I have my D’Orsay ticket for late April and am excited to see the VR experience. I hope someone who sees it in late March or early April posts on this forum what it’s like. Having seen the Notre Dame VR experience, in which its limited to about 30 people each half hour, I can’t envision how the museum is going to handle the VR for the hordes of people there at any one time.