Do you hear yellow?

AR Experience for Lenbachhaus Gallery

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The challenge

The museum sector is in a state of transition. Not only since the pandemic. Art galleries, like the Lenbachhaus in Munich, record fewer visitors. Besides curating artifacts, museums have an essential role in the educational sector. They need to reinvent themselves and adapt to societal demands to to stay places of participation and conversation.
Year
2020

Keywords
Immersive Experience
Cultural participation

Discipline
Design Research
Experience Design

Collaboration
Städtische Gallerie im Lenbachhaus Munich
How can an AR app increase cultural participation?

The change

Immersive technology such as AR extends the experience of historical artwork beyond the visible and tangible. An additional information layer opens up the potential for education beyond conventional media. This widens the access to art and culture for new visitor groups.

Interact

The AR experience on the forecourt provides a playful introduction to the exhibition. The statue on the forecourt generates attention and connects the digital and physical world.
Community engagement
Visitors can linger on benches, adding songs they associate with the colorful shapes on their screens. Plus, they can share their impressions with friends and listen to associated songs of other visitors.
Virtual wayfinding
After scanning the statue and opening the AR app, colorful shapes point the way to the exhibition's entrance. This includes the usually untapped forecourt as an exhibition space.

Inform

Inside the museum, an AR guide informs about the historical connection between art and music. It uses the example of the synaesthete Kandinsky.
"I would go to museums if they would present the context of artworks in a more appealing way."

PARTICIPANT 05

Cultural access for all
A contemporary presentation of historical artifacts enables less art-savvy visitors to build a relationship with the content presented in the exhibition.
A participatory AR experience connects visitors' lives with artifacts and transforms public places into exhibition spaces.

Participatory exhibition

Benches and statues on the untapped forecourt of the museum enable even less interested passers-by to participate in culture. AR expands the exhibition in public space in a playful way. This immersive experience makes the phenomenon of synesthesia understandable and perceivable by encouraging the visitor to evoke their own connection between color and sound.
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