zoomguide
Basic information
Project Title
Full project title
Category
Project Description
zoomguide is a community-driven platform to enhance how people discover art and culture in the world. The platform enables museum curators, artists and citizens to bind digital stories and artworks to physical objects of artistic, historical or cultural significance.
The platform is composed by an app powered by artificial intelligence that enables people to scan cultural items and obtain multimedia stories and digital artworks, and a content curation system for creators and storytellers.
Geographical Scope
Project Region
Urban or rural issues
Physical or other transformations
EU Programme or fund
Which funds
Description of the project
Summary
zoomguide is a community-driven platform to enhance how people discover art and culture in the world.
Be it an urban metropole, a rural village, or a museum, the world is full of culture. Unfortunately, access to it is not always easy. One key reason for this is how challenging it is for non-experts to interpret culture when they see it and discover it in a way that is engaging and fully explorers its beautifulness.
Our platform enables museum and art galleries curators, artists and citizens to bind digital stories and artworks to any physical object of artistic, historical or cultural significance.
The platform is composed by two parts: (1) an app powered by artificial intelligence that allows people to scan objects and obtain curated stories and digital artworks that help them discover what they are seeing, (2) and a content curation system for creators that enables storytellers and digital artists to easily create and attach multimedia stories to objects.
This project makes it possible to connect physical works of art with the stories behind them, including stories told from different perspectives, enabling people to better understand what they are seeing and its context, contributing to making art more inclusive and its beautifulness transparent to all.
In addition, the project provides a way for digital artists to create and share their art, by enabling them to connect digital art with physical art.
The platform is free to all, including to creators. The platform enables the transaction of digital artworks, with revenues shared between the artist and the platform, which constitutes the primary financing source of the project. Furthermore, a percentage of the transactions is donated to an organization chosen by the artist, from a selected list of organizations aligned with the United Nations global issues. This donation is built-in the digital contract of the transaction and remains valid for all future transactions, contributing to a lasting impact.
Key objectives for sustainability
This project has several measures to ensure ecological and environmental sustainability. Through the technology developed by zoomguide, physical supports such as paper, hardware audio-guides, disposable headsets, among others, are not necessary. People can use zoomguide through their personal smartphones, reducing not only the usage costs but also the need for any additional equipment.
The content made available through the platform is created by the community, including artworks (physical and digital). In order to not limit artists creation process, we do not impose restrictions on materials or processes do create artworks. However, to have a significant impact and to positively contribute to solving important societal challenges, we require all transactions of digital artworks made through the platform to donate a percentage of its value to an organization chosen by the artist, from a selected list of organizations aligned with the United Nations global issues, including a list of organization that address environmental issues. This donation is built-in the digital contract of the transaction and remains valid for all future transactions of the artwork, in order to ensure a lasting impact.
Key objectives for aesthetics and quality
This whole idea is based on a context in which the concept of Art is undoubtedly one of its main foundations. Works of art are, by a general definition, objects intervened upon by Man and that provide or demand technical virtuosity both from the artist who executes them and from their observers.
Precisely for this reason this is a project that makes it possible to increase or even create the consumption of Art in the daily life of societies. We are aware that today, Art can be seen as a secondary thing in our lives, for not being a primary necessity, however, we consider that today, the arts are an integral part of everyone's lives, and that they have reached a level of importance, in some forms, that is essential and highly valued in people's lives.
Art is a vehicle that allows us to make trips to worlds that do not exist, and that may exist only inside each one of us, but it is also a very important tool to transmit or even materialize ideas and concepts of the real world, and that otherwise would not be possible to be demonstrated.
In this project, besides financing and promoting the creation of works of art, whether physical or digital, the technology used by zoomguide allows people to interpret and understand what they are seeing. This action helps people become more knowledgeable about the whole context in which the pieces are conceived and with that create a more intimate connection with them. Humans feel more interested in what they know best and what is aesthetically more beautiful, and therefore, in addition to the importance of the very existence of art on the streets and in societies and with this its mandatory consumption, even if subconsciously, this project allows users to know its context or history, creating connections that strengthen the importance of art in the daily life of societies.
Key objectives for inclusion
One key concern in this project is the inclusion of all its possible users, including in terms of community engagement, co-creation, usability and accessibility, including financial accessibility.
The proposed platform is driven by the community in the sense that the platform provides the digital means for people to create the stories and share artworks, but these digital assets are always created and contributed by people. Individuals can play the roles of consumers of art and information but also as creators, contributing to the engagement of the community.
The platform incentives co-creation by allowing digital artists to bind digital art to physical art, including works inspired or that complement others, enabling a connection between real and virtual worlds.
The entire application and content curation system is designed according to international content accessibility standard (WCAG 2.1), guaranteeing the fulfillment of all the necessary measures and suggestions, so that the platform is available to all publics, including publics with disabilities.
Accessibility, including financial accessibility, is also achieved by providing the platform at no cost all, including to creators, and by developing the platform in a way that does not require any special tools or infrastructure besides a standard smartphone and an internet connection.
Finally, we guarantee that throughout the evolution of this project, inclusion and accessibility, in its various forms, is a standard that we want to keep as a central point, ensuring that there will be no room for inequality, discrimination, segregation or exclusion.
Physical or other transformations
Innovative character
This project aims to involve people and communities with Art, Culture and History in their daily lives, making access easy and free. In this way, we believe we are contributing for people to feel more informed and involved with these concepts, which even though they are not a primary necessity for human life, are key points for the way we are and live our lives in society.
Currently, sustainability is a widespread concern, which cannot be forgotten in this initiative. The technology proposed does not introduce waste, but this by itself is not enough. We positively impact sustainability by requiring require artists to donate a percentage of artworks transactions made through the platform to an institution of their choice, from a selected list of organizations aligned with the United Nations global issues, including a list of organizations that address environmental issues.
Inclusion is a central point in this project, including in the areas of community engagement, co-creation, usability and accessibility, and financial accessibility, by having a community driven platform that is open to all at no financial cost and by following international content accessibility guidelines.
In short, this is project aims to involve Art and Culture with people and can be replicated anywhere in the world. For this reason, and through the creation of physical works and, through these, digital works, this project incentivizes its users to enjoy these works and consider them an integral part of their communities, increasing the feeling of inclusion and belonging through Art and Culture.
