City Life Magazine 08 | Page 35

FEATURES user interface, the ability to recommended related objects and a search function, users can easily browse the museum’s worldclass collections; take a tour or create their own tour of their favorite works of art; find visitor amenities; and learn about events and programs taking place at the museum”. The described system is completed with the most engaging and emotional element of the Museum: a gigantic screen, unique in the world for its size and design, the Wall Collection. This is a multi-touch wall tiles 12 meters long, with over 4,000 interactive microtiles, one for each object, painting or photograph owned by CMA. The single microtiles can be simply view as a post-it note on a board, but most of all allows a visitor to create - with the dedicated app for ArtLens – a personalized tour inside the museum, using a simple i-Pad. Again Caroline Guscott helps us to understand the potential of the project:“The ArtLens app also integrates with the museum’s Collection Wall, a 40-foot microtile, multitouch wall that displays over 4,000 objects currently on view in the museum’s galleries. Visitors can select objects on the wall and save them to their favorites in the ArtLens app. These favorites, as well as any others added while browsing, can be turned 35 into a customized tour that leads visitors through the galleries”.The third instrument adopted by the CMA is dedicated to children and their desire to play and to get the “know why” behind everything, how it was created or made: it is the unique Studio Play. It is not only a source of knowledge, but above all it is a means of interaction with the artwork. By touching the screen with a finger it allows to draw a shape and then activate the matching with any artwork in the collection, an interactive system of learning and become familiar with the world of human creativity, which covers about 6,000 years of evolution. Ms. Guscott illustrates us the possibilities:“This bright and colorful space offers the museum’s youngest visitors and their families a chance to play and learn about art. Highlights include a shared interface (35” x 64” multi-touch microtile wall) which allows visitors to draw, and then matches their drawings with works of art; a shadow puppet theater where silhouettes of objects can be used as “actors” in plays; mobile and sculpture building stations where visitors can create their own interpretations of modern sculptures by Calder and Lipchitz; and a sorting and matching game featuring works from the permanent