Reposted from my blog at Tate
The version of Street View technology used in the galleries involved an extremely high tech and rather silly-looking trolley. It was to be pushed around the rooms at a particular speed and on a peculiar route, and seemed to me to be a marvellous combination of garden-shed and cutting-edge.
Battery change. At 23 kilos each they were not fun to carry around
The trolley was not simple. It had lasers and cameras and GPS and all sorts. You could not stand in its view, for fear of being captured. Yet it could see you, left right, up down, back and forth and everywhere in between. So it must be operated by a squirrel (a trained man with a perfectly shaped back) who hides in its visual wake and guides it through the rooms.
On the bat's back I do fly
Then you have to be completely out of sight. Which is interesting when you are trying to oversee the logistics of the operation. And in an empty museum at 2am you begin to think that this rule of not seeing what is going on provides perfect cover for some daring and complex ploy to steal a masterpiece. And that must be what the lasers and cameras and GPS are for.
The best way to monitor progress was on our security cameras
The team worked diligently charting their peculiar route through each gallery, trying not to slow down in front of paintings they liked, while I scurried about moving stepladders and other bits that might look as if people actually worked in the museum after hours (they do).
It not only knew where it was, it knew where it had been (blue lines) and where people where hiding (green dots)
The cyber-trolley’s all-seeing eye captured me at one point as I attempted to dip out of view, and of course I am secretly delighted to be immortalised albeit with a blob for a head.
Yours truly fails to evade the all-seeing eye
Here’s a glimpse of the end result:
Aside from Tate Britain, my favourite virtual gallery has to be The Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles. Use the floorplan and go have a look!