Dreams of Dalí is a mobile experience that takes viewers inside the surrealist master’s mind, using his 1935 painting Archeological Reminiscence of Millet’s “Angelus” as a starting point. For the first time, people can experience a painting from before the artist’s very first brushstroke. Dreams of Dalí lives as a 360-degree interactive video and as a VR experience at the museum or on any mobile device with the use of VR gadgets. Both the video and VR experience take viewers on a journey in which they can explore the wonders of Dalí’s imagination. As they move around, they can hear his thoughts, find some of the famous creations that would come later in his career and, in the process, learn more about the work of the surrealist master. Dreams of Dalí is a new and more engaged way to look at art.

The VR experience was first available as part of the museum’s new exhibition Disney and Dalí: Architects of the Imagination. After the opening weekend, the experience became a 360-degree interactive video on Facebook and YouTube. Using their mobile devices, anyone could try it in virtual reality with VR gadgets like Google Cardboard and Gear VR. The experience starts with the camera looking at a Dalí painting. As it dives in to the artwork, the world imagined and painted by Dalí more than 80 years ago comes to life. To make this possible, we researched the artist’s work and the museum’s permanent collection. Many of the elements found in his painting were recurring motifs across his work, so we used them to inform our 3-D models. We worked with curators to keep all the elements as close to the artist’s vision as possible. To re-create the towers, we looked at the materials and constructions methods used in the area depicted in the artwork. Audio design used his voice, selected from videos from the museum archive and YouTube. We also created the solutions we used, including a navigation interface that lets viewers move around by looking at objects and the proprietary coding.

The exhibition Disney and Dalí: Architects of the Imagination—which Dreams of Dalí celebrates—runs from January 23 to June 12, and preliminary data shows that it had the most successful opening weekend in the museum’s history, with 26 percent more visitors than the previous best opening weekend. The five-minute online experience, also available as an interactive 360-degree video on YouTube and Facebook, garnered over 2 million views without any media spending. As a comparison, the museum receives 400,000 visitors every year. Dreams of Dalí yielded over 1 billion media impressions for the exhibition and the museum, worth over half a million dollars. From the New York Times to Wired, the Washington Post and Smithsonian, the coverage it received included technology, art, advertising and traditional news publications.

Last year saw the boom of virtual reality and 360-degree videos, with brands jumping in to use the new technology, but most lack concept or purpose. YouTube and Facebook launched their 360-degree interactive video functionality, with YouTube even allowing users to experience them with virtual reality gadgets. Dalí always said that his paintings were photos of his dreams; he imagined these places before painting. So we decided to bring his world to life in VR—Walt Disney–style. We did this by creating an installation and an online experience to take people into his mind. The campaign included a teaser trailer, a virtual reality experience that became part of the museum exhibition that it was created to promote, 360-degree videos that lived on YouTube and Facebook, and posters. It was targeted at art lovers around the globe and focused on younger audiences.

The Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, boasts the second-largest collection of the surrealist master, but it still lacks national appeal. Today its visitors come mostly from Florida, so the museum asked us to generate national awareness about its new exhibition Disney and Dalí: Architects of the Imagination and attract new visitors by reaching out to a national audience and art lovers around the world. At the same time, the work had to elevate the institution’s profile as an innovator in the art world and get younger audiences interested in the work of Salvador Dalí. Last year saw the boom of virtual reality and 360-degree immersive videos, with several brands and content creators jumping in to use the new technology along with VR gadgets and the interactive video functionality now available on YouTube and Facebook.