LABoral launches an application for mobiles and tablets which allows users to virtually visit its exhibitions
Presented as an expanded brochure, the tool has been jointly developed with the Asturian company Llume, Estudios y Proyectos Culturales, with funding from the Ministry of Education and Culture
The caption shows one of the interfaces of the LABoral’s application. PHOTO: LABoral/Llume
This Friday 22 February LABoral has launched an application for mobiles and tablets which will allow anyone to virtually visit its exhibitions without having to physically go to the Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial in Gijón. This tool can be downloaded free of charge through the distribution platform Google Play for Android system and within a few days it will also be available at App Store for devices running the iOS system, such as iPhone and iPad,
The project has been designed as a pilot experience resulting from the collaboration between LABoral and Llume, Estudios y Proyectos Culturales and is carried out in the framework of funding granted by the Ministry of Culture, in 2012, for the modernisation and innovation of cultural and creative industries. Additionally, this project is framed within the collaboration agreement signed by the Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial in Gijón and the Parque Científico y Tecnológico de Gijón [Gijón’s Science and Technology Park] in order to boost cooperation between creative firms located in municipal business centres. According to this agreement, LABoral will serve as a centre for resources and innovation, aiming to promote the creative process and establish synergies with industry and the private sector while strengthening its ties with the Asturian artistic community. Based on this agreement those companies situated in any of the premises of the Centro Municipal de Empresas de Gijón [Gijón’s Municipal Centre for Companies] may put forward proposals for cooperation provided that its activity is related to the world of art and industrial creation.
CONTENTS
The application by LABoral takes as a starting point the exhibition Presencia Activa. Acción, objeto y público [Active Presence. Action, Object and Audience], a show coproduced by the Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial in Gijón and MARCO, Museo de Arte Contemporánea de Vigo [Vigo’s Contemporary Art Museum], which will be open to the public at LABoral until this coming Sunday 24th. In the form of an expanded brochure, it offers multimedia information on the artists, the works, the curators, and includes texts, photographs and videos with interviews, performances, etc. Additionally, it includes a list of activities related to the show (performances, visit workshops, concerts…) and an exhibition location plan in the spaces at LABoral as well as general information on the Centre with opening times, admission rates and contact details. In the immediate future, any user of this application will be able to see all of the exhibitions being shown at LABoral at any time and consult those immediately preceding them.
Acting as a type of virtual publication, the LABoral application replaces the need for paper and lowers production costs. It is fully accessible and distributes content free of charge, making it possible to reach a very wide audience that does not need to physically travel to the centre, so that being available in virtual shops, the number of potential recipients is immense.
LABoral, a leader in the use of new technologies and of Web 2.0 tools, is a pioneering institution as it launches the first application for mobile devices by a museum or art centre in Asturias. In this way, it joins a trend which has already been embarked upon by some of the most important artistic spaces in Spain, including the Guggenheim (Bilbao), CAC Valencia, Centro de Artes Visuales Helga de Alvear (Cáceres), Reina Sofía (Madrid), Museo Picasso and the Museo Thyssen (Madrid).
Also, the App by LABoral is one of the very few to base its contents on the exhibitions and related activities. It is free to download, which is rarely the case with those by other museums, and once downloaded it does not need an Internet connection in order to be re-used.
This application will be subsequently marketed by Llume Estudios y Proyectos Culturales under the name of Digi@rt and offered to different museum institutions, galleries and cultural facilities which are interested in the distribution of the content of an artistic exhibition via mobile devices.
Llume, Estudios y Proyectos Culturales is a cultural management firm working in the different fields of the world of culture. One of its most active lines of work is in the area of technology with the development of digital tools to disseminate cultural and/or tourism content. In doing so it combines cultural content and technology-based projects in collaboration with companies in the city’s creative sector –in the specific case of LABoral, with Blackbot, another firm from the Municipal Centre for Companies]- to create synergies through collaboration which in turn generate dynamism in this sector.
