>>
I know that technologies like this were discussed at the conference a
couple of weeks ago (which I enjoyed lots - thanks), but wondered if
anyone has any direct experience of them on gallery, their pros and cons
or the companies offering them
>>
When any museum asks me about using mobile technologies I generally
recommend that they
do a quick survey of their visitors and find out what kind of phones
they have and whether they can run what you have in mind. I'm
guessing that at the moment not many of your visitors have an android
phone. The figure stated at the conference was that 80% of people
will have smartphones by 2015 - until then this is going to be a
minority activity.
I'm a bit suspicious of the camera recognition thing - I'm sure its
very clever and lots of fun when it works but all camera systems tend
to have problems with light levels. If you have any natural light in
your gallery this will make it much less reliable. And is it really
solving a problem people actually have? Years ago I did some research
for the Tate about different ways of locating people in gallery
spaces. We looked at Wireless, infrared, bluetooth, rfid etc and came
the conclusion that the best and most reliable way was for each
picture to have a number and for people to type in it.
But the really big issue that people that you need to consider is
"What is the advantage of this system over alternatives
interpretation methods". People talk about getting past the "50 word
limit" on labels but that limit isn't there because of space - its
there because most visitors don't want to read any more than this.
They're even less likely to read more text on a small phone screen.
Once again the Tate did some excellent work on this and found that
visitors are very keen to see film of the artists at work and
sometimes keen to hear a curator talking about the work (although
this depends on the curator).
So, to sum up, go and have a look at the Tate Modern vitual tour.
This will give you a much more concrete example to consider.
Cheers
Joe
Joe Cutting
Computer exhibits and installations
www.joecutting.com
35 Hospital Fields Road, York, YO10 4DZ
01904 624681
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