That's Art Mobs, Not Art Snobs ...

I decided to join the Thursday evening blogger list and hope to make it to the meetings.  But, found this interesting example of using this new technology to make art more accessible ... Makes me wish we lived in New York or that it could be done for MFA in Boston. 

“Art Mobs” is a project designed by students in Dr. David Gilbert’sOrganizational Communication course at Marymount Manhattan College in New York City. For Spring Semester, Gilbert’s students have produced unofficial audio guides for the Museum of Modern Art and made them available on the Web as podcasts. They are inviting the public to submit homemade audio guides to their podcast feed, which the students hope to make a permanent distribution system for audio guides that anyone can produce, share, transfer to an iPod or other MP3 player and take into MoMA.

MoMA provides official audio guides, on proprietary audio devices,for a fee. The Art Mobs project exploits the ubiquity of iPods and other portable MP3 players to offer museum-goers a free, grassroots alternative. Gilbert explains: “In a sentence, we are democratizing the experience of touring an art museum; we are offering a way for anyone to ‘curate’ their own little corner of MoMA.”

To learn more about the project, subscribe to the podcast, or submit an audio guide, visit
http://www.mod.blogs.com/art_mobs

The mission of Art Mobs is to explore the intersection of communication, art, and mobile technology. Last year students collaborated with the NYC-based digital arts group YellowArrow to
host a gallery event on Marymount’s campus in Manhattan. With the help of YellowArrow, students designed a messaging system for mobile phones that allowed guests to send and receive SMS (Short Message Service) text messages about works of art on display in the gallery. They also tested podcasting as a medium for delivering audio tours to gallery guests. Podcasting is a new technology for making audio content available on the Web via RSS (Really Simple Syndication). Art
Mobs is an ongoing project for Organizational Communication studentsin the Department of Communication Arts at Marymount Manhattan College.

There's lot of articles about the project and related to the concept in Gilbert's delicious account.

Comments

[Julian Bermudez]

Beth,

One example of a blog being used in the museum context can be found at Ushnisha, Pacific Asia Museum's blog on Buddhism and Buddhist art. The blog is designed as a forum for happenings in Buddhism and Buddhist art in Southern California and throughout the world. It can be found at www.ushnisha.blogspot.com.

[Greg B.]

This of course reminds me of Antenna Theatre - and their for-profit spin-off, Antenna Audio.

It's also ... ironic? to read this in the context of your previous article on museum revenue declining....

I'm seeing a trend (that may be obvious?) of this new techno-DIY affecting even areas that are not typically targets of anti-establishment work - like the arts world. I'll have to follow-up my thoughts over on Ext 311. :-)

[Beth]

Thanks Greg for the pointer to Antenna Audio. And, looking forward to your extended thoughts on this ... I have some ideas perculating in brain.

I did a bunch of research for a npower research paper on the topic of how arts organizations are using to technology to deliver programs back in 2003. I searched for examples of on how they were using handhelds/mobile technology. All of it at was experimental at the time. I think a a few of the examples someplace or they might be referred to in the report.