With the “kultur.digital.strategie” program, the Bavarian Ministry of Art supports state cultural institutions on their path to digital transformation. Around 1.5 million euros will again be made available for the years 2023 to 2026. The Bavarian State Painting Collection, the Bavarian National Museum, the Bavarian State Theater, The New Collection – The Design Museum, the General Directorate of the State Archives of Bavaria, the Museum for Casts of Classical Images, the Museum Pedagogical Center, the State Museum of Egyptian Art and the Central Institute for Art History receive corresponding ones Grants.
All nine institutions were already part of the previous program. That’s why over the past two years they have developed digital strategies, carried out various experiments in the digital space and collected and shared valuable experiences. Against this background of the experience gained, the projects should now be professionalized. In all nine projects, the focus is on cultural communication. Offers an example the Alte Pinakothek with the app “Alte Pinakothek Unframed”.
It is intended to create new, individual access to the collection. The audience can use their smartphone to conveniently discover the Old Masters in the museum or at home or deepen their impressions of them. When introducing the educational tool, Art Minister Markus Blume can’t help but play on words: he says the tool is “app-absolute madness.”
Priscilla Pfannmüller has been project manager for the digital visit assistant in the Alte Pinakothek since April 2023. Previously, she was a research volunteer at the state painting collections with stations such as the Army Museum and the Bavarian National Museum. In her blog post on the Pinakothek homepage she explains what exactly “Unframed” is all about. “What is the most frequently used color in the paintings of the Alte Pinakothek? Red! Would you have thought that? Well, neither did we. This is just one of many new insights that we gained by tagging the paintings on display at the Alte Pinakothek .”
In addition to thematically curated tours, the app gives you the opportunity to put together tours based on your own interests and share them with friends and acquaintances. Based on personalized recommendations, visitors can explore and discover themes that are discussed in the paintings of the Alte Pinakothek.
So that you can discover the masterpieces, the museum staff have tagged almost 700 paintings with terms that do not require any prior knowledge of art history, such as “woman”, “saint”, “heaven”, “happiness” or even “pain”https://www. sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/.”This keywording is more complex than you think,” says Pfannmüller, “because every person sees (and feels) art differently. A neutral description of art is therefore impossible.” But anyone who tests the new app quickly notices: the subjective aspect works extremely well here.