Smartify is an app that allows gallery visitors to use their mobile phone to identify an artwork and unlock a wealth of information and content about it.
“When visiting museums, galleries or art fairs, we all see artworks we are curious about but then struggle to access more information or to remember the artwork afterwards,” says Smartify’s Anna Lowe.
“Smartify was founded by a team who all encountered the same problem when visiting these attractions. Our goal is to make the rich stories about every artwork more accessible, and to support art venues financially and in reaching new audiences.”
The app uses advanced image recognition and AR to scan the painting and release a variety of audio, text and video insights. The user can save artworks to a personal library.
Smartify is already working with partner museums – including the Met, The Wallace Collection, Rijksmuseum and the Royal Academy of Arts – to supply tailor-made digital visitor guides. Smartify’s founders want to “democratise access to art” by putting the information the visitor wants directly in their hands.
The social enterprise initiative – a UK-government funded Community Interest Company – was founded by tech experts Thanos Kokkiniotis and Nick Mueller, mobile solutions specialist Ron Vrijmoet, and arts education project manager Lowe.
“We work in partnership with museums or galleries globally to make artworks and information available on the platform, and then provide data analytics on the audiences visiting and scanning artworks,” Lowe says.
“The service is completely free to the partners and we actively encourage them to advise us on future development and new features for the app.” “We believe nothing beats the physical experience of visiting a museum or gallery and want to make it easy to discover, remember and share art.”
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