With the click of a mouse—or as fast as your thumbs can navigate a cell phone screen, there’s a new way to access Broward County’s multi-faceted public art collection.
Stroll through Terminal 1 near the baggage claim at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and see Duane Hanson’s sculpture “Vendor with a Walkman” without leaving your desk. Stand outside of Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise and delight in Martha Schwartz’s intriguing light canopies titled “Flying Saucer Grove ” from a computer tablet, or cruise through Port Everglades and check out Vanessa Till Hooper’s interactive light wall “Visual Voyage” from your cell phone.
It’s all possible in the metaverse, a three-dimensional virtual space created by the technology company imx3 that enables people to digitally explore works from Broward County’s public art collection.
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Currently there are five featured works from the more than 300 art pieces in Broward County’s Public Art & Design collection. More will be coming online in 2025. In addition to the three already featured in BAM (Broward Arts Metaverse), “As One,” a sculpture by Blessing Hancock in the Dillard Green Space in Fort Lauderdale, and “Accordant Zones,” a sculptural park in downtown Fort Lauderdale designed by Barbara Neijna and Ned Smyth, are also featured.
For BAM visitors, the art may be virtual, but the experience is definitely real.
While the term “metaverse” may sound like something designed only for the tech-savvy, Edward Munoz-Toro, imx3’s technology officer, explains that it is simply a web-based platform, BAM.imx3.art, that doesn’t require users to download software or apps to use. Accessible from a computer, tablet, Android phone, and soon, iPhone’s iOS platform, it can also be used with or without virtual reality headsets.
“Since we’re web based, you pull it up, fill out the address bar, and you’re there. It’s a rather easy and approachable thing to do,” says Munoz-Toro.
However, instead of the internet being a two-dimensional space where users, Munoz-Toro says, scroll up and down like on, for instance, social media’s Instagram, the metaverse is a three-dimensional space.
“A video game is a good analogy. Most newer video games are actually 3D. They are open worlds that you can actually navigate. You can enter buildings. They simulate reality,” he says.
Users can also learn more about the artists and the artwork, as well as interact and connect with other visitors to the metaverse in real time. And, unlike a traditional museum or gallery space, the metaverse is always open for visitors.
“You can pop in and pop out, day or night, whatever time, whenever you want,” says Phillip Dunlap, the director of the Broward Cultural Division. “So, you really get to explore things on your own terms, and discovery is such an important part of learning.”
In the Broward Cultural Division Metaverse, users start by creating an avatar and begin at a simulation of the Broward County Main Library in Fort Lauderdale, the Cultural Division’s home base. From there, users enter five portals to explore the five pieces of public art. This exploration includes written and audio information about the art and the artist, the ability to chat with other metaverse users, and the ability to see the artwork from perspectives not available in person or in photographs.
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For example, in the metaverse users can view American landscape artist Schwartz’s “Flying Saucer Grove,” outside the Amerant Bank Arena, not only from the perspective of a person at the arena, but also viewing it from above.
While photographs of most of the county’s public art are viewable at the cultural division’s website, Dunlap says that the metaverse offers a much more engaging and interesting way to have people experience the collection.
Munoz-Toro explains that the metaverse is more than just a digital replication of the artwork. For pieces like “Vendor with Walkman” at the Fort Lauderdale Airport, the metaverse provides an immersive experience by allowing users to experience not just the art, but the environment that surrounds it.
“It’s about a 30-year-old guy who’s setting up a shop at the airport. So, if you don’t have the airport, you’re only telling half the story. So, what we do is not only scan the entire piece, but also the surrounding areas and bring all that to life,” says Munoz-Toro.
In addition to providing immersive and interactive elements, the BAM also helps make the county’s public art more accessible.
Dunlap points out that many pieces of public art are not in the most accessible places.
“They’re spread about the county in many different places, everywhere from the Port to the airport. It’s not like you can just walk into the Port to go see art, right?” says Dunlap, because access to the artwork requires a cruise ship boarding ticket. “We have art in libraries. We have art in parks. We have art in big open public spaces. It’s not easy to, say, plan your day around trying to find our public art pieces.”
The idea for the metaverse project came from discussions within the Cultural Division about creating engaging ways to experience Broward County’s public art collection and ways to celebrate the upcoming 50th anniversary of Broward’s Public Art and Design program, which started in 1976.
The first phase of the metaverse project includes the five pieces currently available in the metaverse. Expected to be completed in 2025, the second phase will add an additional 30 pieces to the metaverse.
Prior to the Broward Cultural Division Metaverse, imx3 first created the FATVillage Metaverse, a digital replication of the FATVillage Arts District in downtown Fort Lauderdale before it was demolished in 2023.
“The idea was to scan it and preserve it before it was gone forever,” says Munoz-Toro
But FATVillage lives on in the metaverse.
In this virtual art district, artists can upload and curate their work and users can explore the three-dimensional spaces while interacting with other users in the digital space.
While the metaverse can remove some of the barriers to exploring public art, imx3 Operations Director Tayina Deravile views the metaverse as a complement and not a threat to the real-life experience.
Munoz-Toro says it’s not trying to replace the experience but rather trying to expand the experience.
“This is not an ‘either-or’ conversation,” says Deravile. “This is an ‘and’ conversation.”
The metaverse is an exploration opportunity and a chance to expand on the physical, she says.
“At the same time, it also ignites the curiosity to go and see these places in real life,” says Munoz-Toro. “We have seen that this is a great catalyst to get people excited about public art, and to get people to drive to these places because they’re now a little bit more familiar. Their interest has been piqued.”
Dunlap agrees.
“I hope people just get a sense of our public art. I hope people find it as an engaging way to see something, maybe, in a virtual environment, and then go explore and find where it actually exists,” he says.
Stake out your place in the metaverse for free by going to https://BAM.imx3.ART.
View a sneak peek of what awaits you in this digital art world..
