The brand-spanking new PAMM App was launched today and has lots of neat stuff, including exhibition audio tours, contextual multimedia content to learn more about the art on display at the museum, unique content related to special exhibitions, and a calendar of the museum’s upcoming events at the Perez Art Museum Miami. The app is beautifully made and pretty fantastic.
Like everything else in the world though, it’s not perfect. It only works on iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches, and they’ve provided what basically amounts to a website duplicate for everyone else, at pamm.org/app. Sure that means you don’t need the app at all if for some reason you don’t want it, but apps always provide a more seamless experience. Even worse, the app unnecessarily turns your music off when you open it, which is just so annoying. Still, those two relatively minor annoyances aside, it really makes you wish more Miami institutions would get App-y. Here’s the press release for more deets:
MIAMI – May 5, 2017 – Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) today launched a mobile app, powered by Cuseum, to enhance the museum-going experience for its visitors. The PAMM app gives users an opportunity to experience, learn and engage with the art on view at PAMM by providing contextual multi-media content, including audio tours and videos of the interior and exterior galleries, an interactive map, and a calendar of museum events and programs. The app also offers unique content related to PAMM’s special exhibitions. For PAMM’s current exhibition, Toba Khedoori, the app offers exclusive audio interviews with PAMM Director Franklin Sirmans, the exhibition’s curator, that address the artist’s silent, slow and exacting process of working by hand.
“Art and technology have always been intertwined,” said Sirmans. “With technology always rapidly changing, we are looking to evolve the museum-going experience with our visitors’ wants and needs. This app is next step in our evolving relationship to technology and its application to the museum experience.”
The PAMM app is part of a six-month pilot with Cuseum, a leader in the mobile app space for art museums and cultural organizations.
“We’re excited to be partnering with Pérez Art Museum Miami, one of the most innovative contemporary art museums in the country,” said Brendan Ciecko, CEO & founder of Cuseum. “PAMM’s commitment to engaging and connecting with their audience through new digital channels is inspiring – we’re honored to support these initiatives with the new PAMM mobile app.”
The mobile app also supports PAMM’s wide range of interpretation needs and is a key tool for video storytelling, putting rich and unique content into the palm of visitors’ hands. With artist interviews and videos produced by the museum’s on-staff digital journalist – a newly established position at PAMM that seeks to leverage video content to amplify PAMM’s art, mission and programs – the app is the first in a series of upcoming tech initiatives launching at the museum. Later this month, PAMM will announce a new pilot program funded by the museum’s close partners at the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, focused on in the intersection of art and augmented reality.
The launch of PAMM app has been part of a broader conversation with the Knight Foundation on how to incporate technology into the museum to connect people to art, enhance the visitor experience and advance scholarship.
“Art museums have a unique role in telling our stories, reflecting our cultures and helping us understand the world around us. To remain relevant, they have to adapt to the way people live today,” said Victoria Rogers, vice president for arts at Knight Foundation. “We hope to help museums accelerate that process and use digital tools to meaningfully engage visitors in high-quality art.”
The PAMM app is available for free from the App Store on iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, or on all devices at pamm.org/app.
