Emerging Technology

Consumers Spent Big This Holiday Season - What and How Did They Buy, and What May Capture Their Attention Next?

Consumers Spent Big This Holiday Season - What and How Did They Buy, and What May Capture Their Attention Next?

There are a lot of options for how people may choose to allocate their time, attention, and financial resources. To an extent there is competition in the cultural sector between museums, theaters, and other similar organizations, but external options, such as other forms of entertainment or educational technology, present a plethora of choices for the consumer. With that in mind, as we start the year let’s take a brief scan of what was hot in the tech world through the 2018 holiday season, and what appears to be on the horizon.

Top 7 Technology Innovations to Watch in 2019

Top 7 Technology Innovations to Watch in 2019

Heading into 2019, we find ourselves on the precipice of what some call Web 3.0 with other technologies extending far beyond the web.  Technological change is advancing at quantum speed, with notable technologies likely to impact arts institutions significantly.

The Evolving Fusion of AR, Public Art, and Virtual Public Space

 The Evolving Fusion of AR, Public Art, and Virtual Public Space

Public art in commercial and recreational structures is a means to bring communities together and directly connect people with the physical space around them. Typically, public art is presented in the form of murals, sculptures, architecture, and environmental art. In addition to social bridging, public artworks can serve as identity-markers for particular locations, mediums to express distinct points of view, and vehicles to inspire personal and social change.

4 Ways to Increase Accessibility for Low-Vision and Blind Patrons in Art Museums

4 Ways to Increase Accessibility for Low-Vision and Blind Patrons in Art Museums

Technical innovations are increasing opportunities for patrons who have low or no vision to engage with the arts. There are four dominant approaches for serving these members of the community: seeing through touch tours, beacon technology, audio description, and applications on personal devices.

Image credit: National Park Service

Research Update: Artworks Powered by Artificial Intelligence in the Marketplace

There is a significant distinction to be made between the traditional model of AI-generation - where an algorithm simply produces a piece of art - and a more interactive form of generation, where the algorithm is actually part of the art. The question then becomes, how can artwork that requires ongoing AI generation and adaptation can be integrated into the traditional marketplace?

Image source: Philip Beesley Architect Inc.

ReMasterpieces: A Machine Learning Powered Provenance Research Tool

ReMasterpieces is an academic research project created with two goals in mind: first, to recreate missing works of art using computer vision and machine learning and present the works to the original owners and second, to educate and empower people to find the actual missing works of art.

New Tech Impacts Ancient Sites

New Tech Impacts Ancient Sites

Last April, contributor Jana Fredricks attended the 2018 Museums and the Web conference in Vancouver. Amidst the chatter of digital collections, online audience engagement, and shiny new tech, she presented research on three technologies that have changed the way cultural heritage sites are understood and documented in the digital age. Her paper, Digital Tools and How We Use Them: The Deconstruction and Reconstruction of Cultural Heritage in Syria, was presented in a panel entitled Post-Colonial Digital.

Blockchain Explained: Understanding the Technology and its Applications for the Arts, Part 1 of 3

Blockchain Explained: Understanding the Technology and its Applications for the Arts, Part 1 of 3

In this three part series we will detail how blockchain works, its applications for the arts, and the risks arts managers should consider before deploying a blockchain based system.