Charlotte Museums: Your Personal Docent
Charlotte, North Carolina’s metropolitan museums have used Augmented Reality (AR) to enhance visitor engagement and education by layering docent-led video tours of specific works onto the in-person experience. Patrons of the Harvey B Gantt Center, Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, Levine Museum of the New South and The Mint Museum can use a free app to access informational clips as they make their way through the uptown institutions. In times of greater social distance, the ability to have a guided tour sans crowd is a real bonus for the museums.
Assignment Idea: Supercharged Tour Guides
Description
Many spaces and places carry with them rich histories and fascinating context that is only accessible with the guidance of a knowledgeable other. In the example, these are museum docents, but you can also imagine interactions between visitors and park rangers, archivists, caretakers, reenactors and more, depending on the setting.
How can these exchanges be made even more available, both in existing settings as well as informal/interstitial spaces that may not play home traditionally to tours? What hidden histories might you uncover in a neighborhood by way of an AR overlay? How could this technology help to explain localized effects of climate change near your home? What other ideas do you have for adding expert information to the world around you?
Subject Areas
Arts (Museum Studies), Education, History, Recreation
Deliverables
- explore a similar app-driven experience (1)
- identification of a place or space you would like to teach more about
- 360º image or video of the chosen location (optional)
- listing of hidden history or related context to add as an overlay
- mock up of information prompts, videos, etc that would be available
- reflection on what you would imagine visitors to take away from an enhanced visit
- revisit information prompts and add a component of reflection for the visitor (optional)