Thanks for that, Sentinel. Fascinating!

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Originally posted by Kradlum:
Slightly on topic, although not quite up to tech, I noticed Kew gardens were trialing an sms text based guide to the Henry Moore sculptures, although I don't think it was locative text, I think you had to send a text to get a text.

been seeing a lot of that, text info for exhibitions and art installations, where you text item no. to a line no. and they send info back. never tried it, seems a little redundant a lot of the time.
but then, i'm the sort that doesn't read teh deep insightful history of things, i just look at them and think "cool"

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Originally posted by remotepush:

quote:

Originally posted by Kradlum:
Slightly on topic, although not quite up to tech, I noticed Kew gardens were trialing an sms text based guide to the Henry Moore sculptures, although I don't think it was locative text, I think you had to send a text to get a text.

been seeing a lot of that, text info for exhibitions and art installations, where you text item no. to a line no. and they send info back. never tried it, seems a little redundant a lot of the time.

How very strange. Why don't they just put up a sign?

(... he says, revealing his hilariously backward, anachronistic thinking.)

i'm sure they do taht as well. so that its just a money making thing or something?

By the time you've written, copy edited, recorded, mixed and made the recording available to be listened to you've probably spent four times what a conventional card caption on a wall would have cost. So I don't think it's necessarily about moneymaking. On a visit to The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, we discovered they something called Art On Call:

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Dial Into Art With Walker Art Center's Art on Call System

Visitors to the Walker Art Center and the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden can now use their cell phones to access a new kind of museum audio guide. Art on Call, a free information system, features artists and curators discussing selected artworks in the collection and provides up-to-the-minute details on current exhibitions, programs, and events as well as information on building hours and ticket purchases. Callers dialing 612.374.8200, any time day or night, inside or outside the Walker, are guided through the system—the first of its kind in a U.S. art center—by Minnesota Public Radio host Mary Lucia (89.3 The Current). Art on Call provides 24/7 access to artists such as Chuck Close, Claes Oldenburg, Yoko Ono, and Kara Walker as well as a growing range of other art world celebrities, curators, and experts. For a complete list of artworks that can be accessed with Art on Call, visit newmedia.walkerart.org/aoc/.

Unlike traditional museum audio tours, Art on Call is designed for spontaneity and immediacy both for the visitor and the staff programming it. For visitors, Art on Call is there for them when they want it. If they find themselves in front of an artwork that inspires them, they simply pull out their cell phone, dial the Art on Call number and then learn, laugh, or be challenged. “Very much like having an audio version of the Walker’s award-winning Web projects in your pocket, this is an information on-demand approach letting visitors choose when and where, and in some ways how, to access information before, during, and after a visit," said Robin Dowden, the Walker's Director of New Media Initiatives. For the Walker, Art on Call’s advanced technology and integrated design allows for automatic updates of the Walker’s calendar and artist information directly from the Web site. The audio clips are a standard MP3 format allowing for quick creation and addition of new material on an ongoing basis. These same MP3 files are also available to the public through the Walker’s Web site (newmedia.walkerart.org/aoc/) as well as in a Podcast version, which can be downloaded to an iPod or other MP3 player. One of the program’s developers, Scott Sayre of Minneapolis-based Museum411 explained, “The user-friendliness and tight integration of the system’s design encourages a level of programming spontaneity not possible with traditional systems. A visiting artist interview can be added or an event changed within a matter of minutes and that new content is instantly available for access through a wide range of personal devices.”

Also distinguishing Art on Call from other museum audio tours is its use of archival material. Many of the artist voices within the program are drawn directly from the Walker’s vast, ever-growing collection of historical audio and video recordings produced over the past 50 years, making many of them publicly available for the first time.

I didn't have a cellphone on me so i didn't try it out in the gallery, but I took a card and later I accessed the site online and listened to a few things. My only problem with the system was that only one thing I specifically wanted to hear more about had info available. But I found plenty of other material that was worth listening to anyway. Whether this kind of thing is of any interest to you probably depends on whether you are interested in engaging in the increasing amount of annotation/discussion/extension that characterises a lot of the practice around modern art (and if you're a regular poster to the WGB then you quite likely are). Sometimes I listen to a Tate audio track just because it helps me to nail down why I HATE a piece.

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Originally posted by colin:
How very strange. Why don't they just put up a sign?

(... he says, revealing his hilariously backward, anachronistic thinking.)

The lack of signs and captions promotes curiosity. I makes you focus on the items you find interesting rather than just breezing through an exhibition. You will look more at an item if you can't immediately verify what the object is.

They did this in the ethnographic collection at the Danish National Museum. You have to go over to a touch screen to find out what things are. This of course can be annoying if there are a lot of visitors who have to stand in line to get their information, but luckily the times I have visited the exhibition it wasn't a problem.

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Originally posted by Fashionpolice:
The lack of signs and captions promotes curiosity. I makes you focus on the items you find interesting rather than just breezing through an exhibition. You will look more at an item if you can't immediately verify what the object is.

Hmm. That's an interesting idea, but doesn't there still have to be a little code number or something so you can text in to get the right text? Does not having the explanation immediately available make the difference?

I was thinking it would be interesting if the information density could be higher (i.e. more information available than could be carried using traditional captions), perhaps even conflicting opinions on the same work. But text messages need to be short, and if it was voice you couldn't scan it quickly like you can a caption or article.

The main thing that got me, though, is how ubiquitous texting is. I hardly ever send or read text messages on my phone, but I'm pretty sure I'm an anachronism.

I used to volunteer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, so I went there four days a week or so. It didn't take long to notice that people spend twice as much time reading the little cards than actually looking at the art. If you did see someone staring at an artwork, 9 out of 10 times it was because they had an audio guide.

This has put me in favor of the audio guide. But I think I like the "art first, words later" idea better. It would also help to stop people from *only* looking at the Raphael in a room full of nice paintings, for example.

Yes. At The Louvre they've moved the Mona Lisa into a room of its own - a couple of other things are in there, but they're supporting players really - because it always had a crowd around it blocking the passageway to all the other equally interesting paintings nearby on that floor. Plus, it's tiny, so everyone would be jostling to get closer.

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Originally posted by colin:
The main thing that got me, though, is how ubiquitous texting is. I hardly ever send or read text messages on my phone, but I'm pretty sure I'm an anachronism.

Their ubiquity here may be due to the fact that in the UK most people have a monthly package that includes a set number of free texts. I started off with a monthly 600 txt limit that I downgraded to 300 because I didn't use that many. If I could use the free ones internationally it would have been soooo much better... and you'd be getting txtx from me at random intervals. So maybe that's why thay aren't free.

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But text messages need to be short, and if it was voice you couldn't scan it quickly like you can a caption or article.

Which is how you can tell when people are listening to audio guides*. They all go around the gallery in the same order, looking at things for the same amount of time. No skipping!

*aside from noticing the honking great black slab they're holding up to the side of their heads

Just wait until someone figures out how to comment tag real life like they tag pictures on flikr. Oh the joys of looking at some random object that has a comment mark on it and seeing "lol, ths looks like a dik" pop up.

(Or being unable to see what you want to look at because of all the ruddy comment boxes in the way.)

colin, language please. This is a family-friendly board.

Oh sure, Mr. "honking black slab". Tsk!