For the first time in history, museumgoers will have the opportunity to enjoy a completely new experience using Google Glass, during the Velázquez exhibition at the Grand Palais, in Paris.
This exhibition will be the first of its kind, not only because Velázquez has never been featured in an exhibition in France before but also because visitors can experience it in a completely new way, through Google Glass.
With 2 million visitors a year, the Grand Palais is one of the leading exhibition venues in Europe. The Grand Palais selected GuidiGO’s innovative storytelling platform to offer a groundbreaking experience to its visitors. The first beta testers have already described their experience as “mind-blowing”. The content was created by Acoustiguide who leveraged all the unique features available on GuidiGO for Glass.
Through GuidiGO’s image recognition feature, when approaching a painting, contextual audio and visual content appears on Glass, guiding the visitor’s eye to the relevant parts of the artwork. Content is dynamic and enriches the visitor’s discovery of the painting without being intrusive.
Augmented reality effects help deepen the visitor’s understanding of the artwork by zooming in on hidden details not easily visible or noticeable to the eye. Other painting images may appear in the viewing field so that the visitor can benefit from context, compare or learn more about the actual exhibit. In addition, several video footages from the curator bring insight and perspective to help the visitor further understand the artist’s work.
Glass dims off automatically, allowing visitors to appreciate and connect with the artwork naturally. This specific feature is key, comments from Corine Barbazanges, Head of Marketing at GuidiGO.
“Our Glassware is designed to enrich the visitor experience instead of substituting it.”
GuidiGO is the first and only Glass certified partner for museums and over the last 9 months has led several pilot projects with Glass around the world. The most recent one was for the Keith Haring exhibition at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, earlier this year. The RMN Grand Palais decided the technology was ready to be made available to its visitors, after carrying out a pilot with the Niki de Saint-Phalle exhibition.
For visitors wishing to try this compelling experience during the Velázquez exhibition, Glass is available to rent for only 8 euros per visit. You don’t need to be tech savvy; if you know how to use a smartphone, you will be walking through the exhibit after a couple of minutes, hands free, and forget you are even wearing Glass.
David Lerman, CEO of GuidiGO, concludes:
“We believe this new visitor experience will become mainstream and we are thrilled to play a key part in this evolution. Every museum and cultural institution in the world can provide this innovative user experience to its visitors by using the GuidiGO platform. Museums no longer need to worry about the technology and can focus on what matters most: sharing the best stories with their visitors.”
Velázquez Exhibition – Grand Palais, Paris – 25 March to 13 July 2015