App explains artwork in exhibition

An app guides a visitor through the new exhibition at the Graphische Sammlung at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH). Augmented reality (AR) is applied to make viewing the artwork on display more personal and interactive. The app was developed at ETH’s Game Technology Center (GTC). 

The GTC was inspired to create an app that would make better use of the potential offered by AR than museums have so far, as GTC director Fabio Zünd explained in an ETH press release. They intend to harness the full potential of the still relatively new technology: “We wanted to create a platform that can be used by museums to create their own AR apps”. The cloud-​based Artifact platform offers curators the possibility to create a customized AR app with interactive offerings that are tailored to their institution’s own exhibitions.

The Graphische Sammlung exhibition at ETH Zurich opened on 9 December 2020 and is a chance to see what the app can do for the first time. For example, it helps convey the techniques used by 16th Century artists Agostino Carracci and Hendrick Goltziu in their copperplate engravings. While smartphones and tablets show artworks on the screen, the app projects the original painting over the print in order to highlight the details and the differences between the painting and the final product. 3D effects and animations also come into play.

“We’re excited to find out how visitors react,” says the Director of the Graphische Sammlung, Linda Schädler. The exhibition runs until 14 March 2021, though it will be closed from 24 December to 3 January.