Experiencing art on the web with virtual companions

Experiencing artworks in the Web aggravates the problem of the absence of any historical, cultural and social context, because the Web is a veritable nowhere. This paper stresses the importance of a social and narrative access to art, and presents an interactive group of virtual characters as an alleviation of this problem. The benefits and overall concepts of this approach are examined. Particularly, the importance of guiding the virtual characters to establish close emotional relations with the user for achieving narrative immersion is stressed, and ways of accomplishing this task are sketched.