Have you seen this? Google’s new “Art Project” site uses their street view technology to allow you virtually tour participating art museums (right now 17 are on board)! You control where you move and “look” by clicking the in-picture arrows (just like on google maps street view), and you can click on a work to zoom in on it– and you can really zoom– check out the still from the video below showing the zoom on Starry Night.

I’m pretty sure this is a closer-up view than you could get even in-person since you have to stand a couple feet back when you’re in the museum and can’t put your eye three inches from the canvas!

Here’s a screenshot showing what it looks like when you’re “in” one of the rooms. See the arrows on the floor? That’s how you pan around.

Check out the video to see how it works…

Even though I think this is super cool, I’m not sure I can totally tons of practical uses for this, except, I have to say, as an art history major at NYU, this would have been amazing for those assignments when you were instructed to go to a particular room at the MET or MoMA and pick a work to talk about it because you of course didn’t know exactly what was in that room, and hence there was no way around actually going to the museum. Which was fine, since I love museums, except when it was freezing and snowing and I hated having to trek uptown. Then, this little gizmo would have been AWESOME.

And regardless of the practical uses (or lack thereof), I love that Google used all its technology and wizardry to create something related to making art accessible!  [via]

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