1st ever Augmented Reality linking to Wikipedia in a museum

We included a fancy interface to click before linking to Wikipedia

Mar de Fons is the title of an art exhibition that is taking place in the Mataró Museum, a local museum not faraway from Barcelona. One of its peculiarities is that you can find more information about the paintings with any mobile devices, thanks to image recognition with augmented reality (AR) that links to Catalan Wikipedia articles.

The exhibition - mainly about sea paintings, with an important role of local artists- was inaugurated on March 30, 2012 and will be open until  September 29, 2013.

How it works

Want to read further about an artist? AR helps you!

Visitors can interact with the artworks focusing them with their smart phone. The designed application allows the direct recognition of the artwork, combining virtual elements in a real context. Thus, when the artwork is focused by a smart phone or tablet, the APP automatically identifies it, appearing on-screen information that is superimposed on the camera and allows linking to the related artist or artwork article in the Catalan Wikipedia.

As far as I Know, this project is first time ever than an AR App links to Wikipedia articles, at least in the field of museums.



Communication
The AR experience is included in the museography of the whole exhibit. As it is a quite newbie technology, even more for a local museum, curators decided to clearly teach how to use it. It is one of the keys of the success.

AR technology is clearly explained everywhere

Floor signs show avaliable AR paintings

Participatory exhibit
The exhibition will be evolving with the contributions made ​​by the public via the museum's Facebook page, where you can vote wich of the possible artworks you want to see exposed. You can also upload your own creations (paintings, photography , video, objects, text) to show how each person lives the relationship with the sea. Contributions from visitors may also be voted through Facebook. The public has an important role in the exhibition because, somehow, they can play the role of curators. There is a planed edit-a-thon on June to improve and translate the Wikipedia articles related to the exhibit, where some other local associations and institutions will get involved.


Success
We've got a huge response from the press, even national press, not usual at all for a small local museum. You can read some of the press news at the comment zone of this entry, and some images of the exhibit at Wikimedia Commons here.