#goldenAge

#GoldenAge is part of the “Portrait gallery of the golden age” an exhibition combining thirty enormous 17th Century group portraits from the collections of the Amsterdam Museum and the Rijksmuseum brought together on display at Hermitage Amsterdam. The project translates the stories behind networking and power in the 17th Century into a social media language of today in a way the young target audience can relate to.

The result is an app #goldenAge that uses mobile technology and iBeacons (Bluetooth transmitters) to allow the public to interact and socialise with them. Using social media messages the audience becomes friends with the Golden Age heroes and receives status updates from characters such us Rembrandt van Rijn or an update of Govert Flinck who created a selfie in his painting for Captain Joan Huydecoper.

The project is being developed as part of the storytelling platform Flinck. Flinck inspires museums to open up and break away from the traditional way to deliver information and offer engaging ways to experience art. The use of technology in innovative ways can help push the boundaries on how to deliver content behind an exhibition.

What did I build?

I was responsible for developing the backend CMS and API; the Android app and the web version of the project. This project was developed in a phased way. Initially a prototype was developed based on Google Glass in which visitors would receive status updates while walking around the museum with their Glass. Later we switched to a more conventional approach, using Android and iOS devices to facilitate the storytelling.

The iBeacon library that I developed while working on this project is available as an opensource Android library, under the name beacon_lib. It build upon the “AltBeacon” library, providing a vendor-neutral iBeacon interface.