App | David Bowie Is
Rachel Ellis discovers a thrilling iteration of the popular V&A exhibition
I’m often underwhelmed with museums’ use of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality, apart from Tate’s rendering of Modigliani’s Parisian studio, which blew my mind. So it’s fair to say that before I even downloaded the new £7.99 David Bowie Is app I was feeling a bit down on it.
But, as with Bowie’s music, which I was dismissive of until I had an epiphany in my mid-30s, I may well have changed my mind about museums and AR. This app is a brilliantly immersive experience. Without even noticing the time tick by, I had spent an hour with Bowie superimposed onto my sofa.
In an hour it felt like I had only scratched the surface of the extensive content available. Once you get the hang of things – like rotating your device to reveal another poster or artwork – you get the sense of being immersed in a dazzling exhibition, without hundreds of other people there with you.
This app, which is also available in a web version, is an adaptation of the much-loved 2013 exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. You are guided through a series of rooms that are organised thematically, where you can pick over the details of Bowie’s innovation and creativity. It is narrated by the actor Gary Oldman, no less.
The audio seems to work like magic – it’s beautifully timed and coped with me flicking from one thing to another. Being able to grab and zoom in on handwritten lyrics and hand-drawn sketches felt surprisingly intimate and almost as good as seeing them under exhibition glass.
The high-resolution captures of Bowie’s costumes, although beautifully delivered in this digital format, were the only thing that I would have preferred to have seen in real life.
The biggest thrill is knowing I can keep going back and exploring, bit by bit – something I often wish I could do after seeing a great exhibition but can’t because of geography, expense or lack of time.
Rachel Ellis is a director at Thirty8 Digital
Game | Occupy White Walls
I leave the gaming in our house to the teenagers. They tried a few years back to get me to play Minecraft, where the player builds worlds and fills them with desirable stuff. I loved the idea of it, but couldn’t keep up with how quickly they navigated around their virtual creations.
In a similar vein to Minecraft, Occupy White Walls is a new game (still in development) that encourages users to build museums and curate content. The works of art come from the catalogues of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC.
You can play via the gaming website Steam (store.steampowered.com), which enables the game to be developed with the help of those playing it. This could be a great way of opening up collections to new audiences and I’d love to see it get past the development stage.
Mobile Guide | Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York has recently launched a mobile guide, which it has developed to help enrich the visitor experience. The guide includes interviews with artists and curators, children’s tours and accessible content such as videos, audio transcripts and sound descriptions.
Interestingly, the guide has been delivered as a web app rather than a native one, meaning visitors can launch the app in their phone browser rather than having to download it and enter a password.
According to the Whitney’s digital team, research across museums showed that most visitors don’t download an app when they visit and therefore a web version was a more sensible approach.
The team also points to the benefits of producing a guide tied into the same system as the museum’s website, rather than a native app that needs supporting separately. This saves money and means that work on the website benefits the mobile guide, and vice versa.
With the pressure on budgets and staff time being an ongoing issue for museums, I suspect we will see more of this type of guide and fewer standalone native apps in the future.