Wallraf-Richartz-Museum
The AR App for the Tintoretto Exhibition
The Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Fondation Corboud in Cologne possesses a prestigious collection of paintings. It contains works by artists such as Rubens and Rembrandt as well as Van Gogh, Cézanne, and Munch. To celebrate the special exhibition honoring Tintoretto’s 500th birthday, our task was to extend the museum’s appeal to younger audiences and motivate them to visit the place.
To reach this young target audience, we hit the streets with the exhibition’s highlights. Using an AR app developed by us, users could discover four selected works from the exhibition on Citylights advertisement panels. Unremarkable poster spaces revealed themselves as interactive works of art with sounds and animation once viewers took a look at their smartphone.
As a gesture of our gratitude for visiting the AR exhibition in the city, participants received discounted admission to the museum at the end.
12475
scanned billboards
5793
app downloads during the campaign
Our museum has for many years specially dedicated itself to engaging younger generations in art from bygone centuries and attracting them to the museum. The ways that people approach the museum play a key role, since these days they are more diverse and increasingly ‘digital’.
To obtain the location of the viewer and the virtual image, we combined with each other two different methods for augmented reality: Vuforia marker tracking and GPS positioning. We ascertained the rough position using GPS like normal. If the viewer was in front of the poster, the AR mode activated.
That’s why I was delighted to pursue the innovative idea from denkwerk, our digital agency, of enriching our major exhibition ‘Tintoretto – A Star Was Born’ with a digital experience. ‘Tintoretto2Go’ is an innovative expansion of the museum into the city’s urban space – and even beyond Cologne, too.
AR mode can be used to look at professional scans of the artworks and details from them. For example: Jupiter and Semele. The painting from 1541/42 was originally part of a wood panel ceiling. However, in museums, it’s always hung on walls. AR technology makes it possible to reconstruct the ceiling painting. To do this, we had to program a solution that displays the tiles outside the reference image. The viewer consequently experiences the image just as it appeared in Renaissance times – as a ceiling painting with Tintoretto’s proverbial opening to the heavens. An audio guide, like those common in museums, simultaneously provides information about the image and the illustrated mythology.
