Augmented Reality for the Enjoyment of Contemporary Artworks On-Site

Abstract

The text tries to critically reflect on potentials offered by new digital instruments, particularly on Augmented Reality, in the field of enjoyment of contemporary artworks into those institutions that are deputy to their exhibiting. Among the objectives of those spaces, museums or other institutions, it is increasingly more important the educational purpose, that until now has been pursued through traditional, and mostly analogical, tools. However, from a cognitive perspective, these instruments don't seem to be particularly suitable in promoting assimilation of content during the observation of an artwork.
Starting from the last years however, exhibiting institutions began to equip themselves with new media for educational purposes, in order to transfer to their visitors useful information to facilitate the reading (not interpretation) of artworks. Through the analysis of two applications using augmented reality, here intended as case studies, respectively leaning one on a wearable technologies (smart glasses) and the other on mobile devices (tablet), the article underlines the potential benefits about using these instruments and at the same time it points out how far we still have to go before learning to use them at their best.