CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) — For the first five years of its existence, the only way to experience IX Arts Foundation’s immersive art museum “The Looking Glass” was to go to its location in Charlottesville. But now, Virginia’s first immersive art museum can be explored anywhere in the world in a new 360º Virtual Tour developed by SoundAround.

Jay Berget, owner of SoundAround, told Cville Right Now he first got involved with IX Arts when he set up sound equipment for its outdoor festivals. A so-called “sound guy,” Berget said his interest in virtual tours stemmed from his interest in architectural acoustics and sounds, and the experience of a venue through that sound.

“I’m interested in certainly historic spaces and concert halls,” he said. “You know, all the variety of cool spaces that then can be scanned.”

Berget first approached IX Arts with the idea of making a virtual tour for “The Looking Glass” eight months ago and showed them the technology he used to create his tours. Creative director Jeff Dobrow told Cville Right Now what made the technology “ideal” was its accessibility.

“Something as simple as a cell phone, you can engage with this tour and look around and explore it,” he said, “through a tablet, through a laptop, through a desktop, through smart glasses if they’re the proper type that run applications and have a computer attached, through VR headsets like the Quest.”

The tour was launched on Tuesday and can be accessed on IX Arts’ website with any donation of $4 or higher. The tour allows users to explore the space by simply clicking on spots on the floor to move along the corners and hallways of the museums. Along the way, users can even click of icons to read more information on different exhibits and their artists.

Berget said due to the unique layout of the museum, fully capturing the museum while making sure the tour’s scan points felt natural provided a unique challenge.

“There’s certainly a little bit of strategy in a sense of choosing those scan points,” he said, “knowing what the camera will see and finding a way to get on both sides of a barrier.”

Ultimately, Berget was pleased with the final product, expressing gratitude about the chance to capture such a unique and beautiful space. He said he hopes to continue working with IX Arts as the space continues to evolve.

“It’s so cool to see the colors that the camera is capable of capturing,” he said, “and see some different depth and try to play with perspective, of course, in the gnome house they have in there is really cool.”

Dobrow called the tour “fantastic,” and said the whole foundation was thrilled with how it turned out. He said now they’ve done a virtual tour, the foundation will be keeping an eye out f0r other opportunities to utilize the technology, including with their events like festivals.

“Not everybody can come here,” he said, “the fact that this is neat and cool and all that is one thing, but we also have to keep in mind that there’s a lot of people, you know. There could be somebody in France or South Africa or anywhere in the world that may stumble onto this and be like, ‘Oh, that’d be cool. I’d like to see.’ They could never come here, but this technology would allow it.”