metro arts
The Metro Nashville Arts Commission, through a grant from the Bonnaroo Foundation, commissioned local literary, music, and sound artists to compose new works inspired by the city’s public art collection.
In a collaborative experiment to increase public awareness and provide easier access to these new sonic works, iV partnered with Nashville based BKON, installing beacons around the eight sculptures to create a “physical web.” When visiting these works of art, mobile devices would recognize the beacons and point to a webpage where explorers could stream specific audio content paired with the artwork.
The result was a bridge between the physical and digital worlds. With a phone, earbuds, and a beacon browser, visitors could simultaneously enjoy the artwork visually and sonically - putting another feather in Nashville’s “Music City” cap.
Highlights:
•Encouraging discovery: Visitors (and locals) were lead on a sonic scavenger hunt through the city, facilitated by an iV designed web portal that offered an interactive map identifying the location of the artwork. Additional information about both the visual and the sonic artists was also provided.
•Gathering Insights: Data gathered by the beacons offered metrics about average visits per art location, logged days and time of day when beacons were accessed, and communicated the amount of time a visitor remained at the site - data that is often difficult to capture with artwork in public spaces.
•Maximizing Engagement: Beacon technology enabled the public artwork to become interactive displays, where information could be easily shared and updated. By simply refreshing the content or changing the URL via a centralized administration site, the Nashville Metro Arts Commission could push new information about the artists, the artwork, and even upcoming exhibitions or initiatives to the general public.