NYConvergence ORIGINAL
By: Gloria Sin

Last week, the Arts, Culture and Technology group crammed into one of the ballrooms at the Roger Smith Hotel in Manhattan, to learn how local arts organizations are using mobile technologies to enhance cultural experiences to appeal to next-gen audiences. The presentations' source materials, which were available through the group's Web site, ranged from design theory to actual case studies:

• Koven Smith, The Metropolitan Museum of Art: He talked about his recent paper, “The Future of Mobile Interpretation”, in which he argued mobile museum guides should design around the visitor’s actual needs and museum-going experience. In Smith’s opinion, future platforms should offer Web-like contextual information on the entire collection, user-generated micro-updates and mapping capabilities.
• Peter Nofelt, Perk Mobile: As a consultant and developer of Blackberry and iPhone apps, he highlighted some opportunities for artists and arts organizations to go mobile.
• Jeffrey Inscho, Mattress Factory Art Museum: He discussed the museum’s MFSCREENtxt project, which allows visitors personalize their experience by live texting and sharing photos using BrightKite on their cellphones. Now, the museum is taking the lessons learnt from MFSCREENtxt to developing an iPhone app for visitors.
• Michael Epstein, Untravel Media: He shared some of the documentary storytelling opportunities for mobile devices, as discussed in his paper “Moving Story”.
• Sonali Sridhar, wearable technology artist: She demonstrated ways an individual artist could explore the mobile space to "create objects that carry a narrative in them." Her previous work has featured mobile technologies from GPS, Bluetooth to even mobile hacking techniques.

What other ways can arts organizations take advantage of mobile technologies to improve your cultural experience? Share your thoughts below.