Innovators Blast Theory take us through their development of Gift that lets visitors use their smart phone to create a digital gift and send it to the one they love.
Gift by Blast Theory from Blast Theory on Vimeo.
With Gift, you can use your smart phone to create a digital gift for someone you love. If you’ve ever made a playlist or a mixtape for someone, this is the same, except with objects from a museum. You choose objects that they would love and then record messages for them. Gift then wraps it all up and sends it to the person you’ve chosen.
What you choose to include is totally up to you. You might choose a picture that triggers a memory of a time you spent together, or just features their favourite colour. It’s a personal gift which will speak directly to the person you send it to.
Gift draws on the practice of gifting as a way to facilitate personalization and social sharing in museums, allowing visitors to define their own trajectory through a museum’s collection by encouraging them to create a bespoke tour for a friend or loved one.
A narrator on the visitor’s phone asks them to think of someone they love before guiding them to explore the museum. The tone is informal with minimal written instructions to free visitors from looking at their screen as they explore.
Visitors are invited to select up to three objects; taking a photo and making a recording for each. Gift then uploads their photos and recordings and allows them to send these as a digital gift via one of their social channels.
The open source platform
Gift was developed over three years through a series of public prototypes hosted at Brighton Museum, evolving with the help of insights from the public and from working with the team at Brighton Museum.
The software used for Gift was designed to provide a lightweight platform for museums to offer thoughtful, shareable and persistent digital experiences with their collections.
The platform is open source and available to use and extend for free or with support from Blast Theory. Get the code from Gitlab or read our information pack to learn more about hosting Gift.
The beauty of Gift is that it gives you a new pathway through the museum, one that takes you off the beaten track onto a pathway of your own”
Kevin Bacon, Digital Manager at Brighton Museum
The research project
Gift is part of a three-year research project funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 727040.
Beginning in January 2017, the project explored the potential of virtual museums in establishing meaningful user experiences which allow for personal, complex and emotional encounters with art and cultural heritage.
The project brings together our long-term collaborators at the University of Nottingham’s Mixed Reality Lab with IT University Copenhagen, University of Uppsala, Next Game, the Europeana Foundation and Culture24.
Read more about other prototypes and tools in the research project
Gift is made in collaboration with the Mixed Reality Lab at the University of Nottingham and with the support of Royal Pavilion & Museums.
Gift is part of a three year research project funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 727040. It is a collaboration with IT University Copenhagen, University of Nottingham, University of Uppsala, Blast Theory, Next Game, the Europeana Foundation and Culture24.
