Virtual reality experience highlight of new Dali Museum show

Thanks to virtual reality, they'll be exploring a Dali painting in a dreamy, three-dimensional world that turns art appreciation into an unforgettable, immersive experience.

Called "Dreams of Dali," the VR experience takes viewers inside Dali's 1935 painting "Archeological Reminiscence of Millet's 'Angelus.'" The painting depicts two towering stone figures along with tiny human figures in a bare landscape with a moody sky.

Users can move around inside the painting, using Oculus Rift headsets to navigate a trippy three-dimensional environment that includes motifs from other Dali works like elephants, birds, ants and his "Lobster Telephone" sculpture.

Accompanied by a haunting piano soundtrack punctuated by bird cries, the VR visuals also include a crescent moon, a stone tunnel and even an image of rocker Alice Cooper, whom Dali featured in a hologram he created in 1973.

The exhibition looks at the castle motif that became a symbol of Disney parks, along with Dali's "Dream of Venus" pavilion from the 1939 World's Fair, which some consider a precursor of contemporary installation art.

The show also displays the Dali painting that inspired the VR experience, "Archeological Reminiscence of Millet's 'Angelus.'" The surrealist work was Dali's interpretation of a 19th-century painting by Jean-Francois Millet depicting two peasants in a field, heads bowed in prayer.