HOW IT ALL STARTED

Have you ever experienced how a seemingly unsavoury situation can lead to something great? Antony Johnson, Beat Agostini and Ursin Mirer have been friends for many years. And oh boy, did they enjoy the pre-Corona life and lifestyle!

Ursin Mirer is a multi-entrepreneur, enjoys playing golf, is a wine lover and likes to travel. Antony Johnson is an IT company owner, gourmet, hotel manager and enjoys cooking for his friends, and Beat Agostini is an art-loving and creative entrepreneur.

During the lockdown the three of them had quite a lot of free time to think about the new situation and the innovations that would arise.

In one of those quiet moments when Beat Agostini would have had time to go to the museum, and couldn’t go, he read in the newspaper about the consequences of the closure for museums, galleries and other exhibitions.

Since he desperately wanted to go to the museum, the obvious thought arose that there must certainly already be exhibitions which could be viewed virtually in 3D.

Beat Agostini creates virtual 3D tours by profession. As an expert, he looked for high-end solutions. And couldn’t find what he expected.

So Beat reached out to his two friends Ursin Mirer and Antony Johnson.

Together they decided to contact galleries, auction houses and artists. They wanted to see whether the public was aware of virtual exhibitions and whether they could help to do exhibitions during the time of the lockdown, at a distance.

The three friends had to quickly realize that this was not widespread in Europe, and certainly not up to date with today’s technology.

They also noticed in the conversations with curators, gallery owners and artists that these were interested in digital solutions, but could not imagine what is really feasible today, and they were rather sceptic of the new, of the digital, of the loss of the haptic experience, of course.

As born enthusiasts and entrepreneurs, the three friends immediately knew that it would probably just depend on being able to show what was possible today.

During one of their lively brainstorming sessions, a 3D virtual gallery was born. See for yourself, this is GalleryNow.ch.