New Orleans, La- The New Orleans Museum of Art is debuting new technology making NOMA’s galleries an interactive learning environment to engage visitors of all ages.
“The NOMA Digital Guide and ARTtab are powerful tools for interpretation and education which will allow NOMA to make the museum experience more interactive for our audiences and enhance arts education” said Susan M. Taylor, NOMA’s Montine McDaniel Freeman Director.
This technological step has been taken in collaboration with CultureConnect, a New Orleans-based technology company focused on the arts & culture sector.
“Susan and her team at NOMA have been fantastic partners with a vision for bringing innovative digital experiences to their visitors. NOMA has helped us realize our mission to make technology an enriching and meaningful aspect of a museum experience,” said CultureConnect CEO, Samantha Diamond.
The NOMA Digital Guide — the first of its kind at NOMA — helps visitors explore highlights from the museum’s collection. These rich media guides are interactive and can be accessed from any location, with any smartphone device.
The NOMA Digital Guide includes three curated pathways through the museum: “Highlights Tour” features must-see works from the permanent collection, “Global Treasures Tour” showcases NOMA’s international art collection, and “Sculpture Garden Tour” journeys through the Sydney and Walda Bestoff Sculpture Garden.
The NOMA Digital Guide also allows guests to plan their visit to NOMA, learn about upcoming events, and share their NOMA experience through social media. NOMA will continue to add more tours and program information to the guide to coincide with new exhibitions and installations.
Visitors can access the guide three ways: Text “noma” to 99-000, visit bit.ly/nomaguide or scan QR code included in materials at the admissions desk.
ARTtab allows visitors to dive deep into the details of a painting, photograph, or object. The popular portrait of Marie Antoinette by Mary Elizabeth Vigeé-Lebrun is the first of five interactive installations which will be rolled out through 2015. For NOMA visitors, ARTtabs will be installed next to a work of art in the galleries to offer a multimedia experience showcasing high resolution images of the work of art, interpretive text, audio, music and videos. Visitors determine their own journey through layers of information like symbolism and composition, the artist’s life and technique, or the historical and social context in which the works of art were created. ARTtab at NOMA is supported in part by grants from the Times-Picayune Classroom Enrichment Program Fund, the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, and the Eugenie and Joseph Jones Family Foundation.
About CultureConnect
CultureConnect empowers museums and arts & culture organizations to deliver beautiful and meaningful digital experiences to their audiences. We help them reach, engage, and enrich their digitally-minded audiences. Based in New Orleans and New York, our storytellers, digital strategists, and creative technologists produce mobile apps, interactive exhibitions, games and more that delight and educate. Our digital experiences are built on the easy-to-use CultureConnect platform, which is flexible enough to create unique digital experiences while saving precious time and resources. For more information about CultureConnect, contact Samantha Diamond at samantha@cultureconnectme.com or (202) 460-2272 or cultureconnectme.com or follow @culturexconnect.
About NOMA and the Besthoff Sculpture Garden
The New Orleans Museum of Art, founded in 1910 by Isaac Delgado, houses nearly 40,000 art objects encompassing 4,000 years of world art. Works from the permanent collection, along with continuously changing special exhibitions, are on view in the museum’s 46 galleries Fridays from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; and Saturdays and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. The adjacent Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden features work by over 60 artists, including several of the 20th century’s master sculptors. The Sculpture Garden is open seven days a week: 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. The New Orleans Museum of Art and the Besthoff Sculpture Garden are fully accessible to handicapped visitors and wheelchairs are available from the front desk. For more information about NOMA, call (504) 658-4100 or visit www.noma.org.
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