A concept for an app that creates new access points to art, created in cooperation with the "Hamburger Kunsthalle". It offers a deeper insight into the backgrounds of selected paintings through intuitive navigation processes. And More depth through interpretations and information such as: era, societal background, painting technique, life of the artist and much more. The prototype is based on my findings from various interviews that took place at the Kunsthalle.
The navigation is intuitive and avoids using hamburger menus with text-based sub-items. Instead, users navigate by swiping with their finger. They can swipe left and right with one finger and zoom in and out with two fingers. Zooming serves as navigation between the three levels of the interface. Users start at the middle image level, and to get an overview, they zoom out to move to the next higher level. Zooming in takes them to the detailed level. The app is fully based on zooming and swiping for navigation to cut out annoying clicking.
This video was the final outcome delivered to the Kunsthalle, it summarizes the current situation in the exhibitions and briefly pitches the solution.
This concept is supposed to work both at home and when you're visiting a museum. However, different approaches are needed for each setting.
At the Museum: When you're at the museum, you choose a painting in the gallery, see it right in front of you, and want to learn more about it. The app should provide you with more detailed information about the painting, such as its era, the artist's background, and its historical context. Users point their camera at a painting using the app, and it gets recognized and displayed on the screen. By zooming in or out, users can access more detailed information about the painting or get an overview of its historical context.
At Home: When using the app at home, users are presented with a painting on their screen. By swiping left, they indicate that they're not interested, and a new painting is shown to them. By zooming in or out, users can access more detailed information about the painting or get an overview of its historical context. For this feature, I've taken inspiration from the mechanics of apps like Tinder.
During my surveys at the Hamburger Kunsthalle, I quickly realized that, like many other people, the sheer volume of art became "too much" for me at a certain point. Due to the large number of artworks, it was difficult to focus on selected ones and delve deeper into them. And even if one still has the perceptiveness and concentration to engage with a piece of art in detail, all that remains is the artwork itself and a small sign with information like: artist, year of creation, painting technique, and other minor details to contextualize the painting. Background information such as the era, political and societal situation at the time, significance, and mental state of the artist, get lost and are only available through googling and reading endless texts.
The mental model behind this approach to artworks and the selection process is that of taking a walk. Each fork in the path symbolically represents a painting, and users actively decide whether to explore it further or not. If you choose not to go down a particular path, you might catch a glimpse of it but not see it in detail (similar to quickly glancing at a painting), and you won't see the paths that follow (analogous to not seeing similar paintings due to the algorithm not displaying them based on disinterest).
One Semester April - July 2023
Participants Exhibition
Lucy Cara Dökel
My Role
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