An open-source platform for users to learn more about works at museums and engage in meaningful dialogue about the art. Aficionado also allows institutions and researchers to better gauge visitor interests and crowdsource a great deal of information about their digital images, including meaningful tagging of the content, colors, and genres of their images.
Users use a phone app to look up a piece of art (currently by using museum accession numbers) and then view more information about the artist and the work itself, as well as a stream of comments left by other visitors. They are able to then join the discussion themselves and further explore the art.
###Apps Android: https://github.com/AficionadoApp/AficionadoAndroid
iOS: https://github.com/AficionadoApp/aficionado-ios
###Background The project started as part of Code Montage’s Coder Day of Service, and our current iteration focuses on the Brooklyn Museum due to its open API and proximity to us in NYC. There is a wealth of data currently being underutilized by museums and libraries, and we wanted to provide an easy way for any visitor (and aspiring art aficionado) to explore the vast information and greater context behind any work of art.
###Inspiration Our inspiration came from the story of ancient Chinese travelers who used to make rubbings on paper of inscriptions from important monuments and landmarks. It was a way to bring back home a concrete piece of the ephemeral experience of their travel. Chinese poets extended this practice by writing poetry in the moments when they traveled to especially beautiful locales. A poet would often allude to the poems of master poets who came before and had written about the same location (for example).
###For Museums A captcha-inspired method of collecting meaningful tagging of images is built in to the app, providing a powerful tool for museums. Before a user can leave a comment, she is asked simple verification questions about the image she sees. For example:
- Q: "You are viewing a work by Keith Haring. Is this: a) a painting b) a print c) a sculpture d) none of these?"
- Q: "Pick a mood to describe this work: Fascinating, Funny, Heartwarming, Aggravating, Frightening, Depressing"
Imagine all the world's museums are able to aggreate powerful data and categorize their digital archives, at the same time that they encourage their visitors to engage meaningfully with the art works in their collections.
###Mockups
