Some of us wake up in the morning and rush to the window to see what's the weather like; others immediately turn to their mobile phones and check out for a message, a tweet or an Instagram post from a lover, partner, friend, relative or inspiring person out there. Those ones obsessed with the digital world and the art universe will now be able to get not just text messages from their loved ones, but also some very special images sent to them directly from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) – or, to be more precise, from its artbot.
If you're in the US you can indeed text the number 572-51 followed by the message "Send me" accompanied by a word describing what you'd like to see (use a keyword, colour and not the name of an artist) or even an emoji.
The reply? An artwork selected by the artbot (it selects images by descriptive words, that's why you can't use surnames of artists) from the 34,678 pieces in the museum vaults.
The texting service was a clever way for the museum to show people what they have in their warehouses beyond the mere 5% on display.
"In a world oversaturated with information, we asked ourselves: how can we generate personal connections between a diverse cross section of people and the artworks in our collection," wrote creative technologist Jay Mollica in a press release. "How can we provide a more comprehensive experience of our collection?"
No two searches are supposed to yield identical results, as explained on the press release: "'Send me the ocean' might get you Pirkle Jones' Breaking Wave, Golden Gate; 'Send me something blue' could result in Éponge (SE180) by Yves Klein; and 'Send me 💐' might return Yasumasa Morimura’s An Inner Dialogue with Frida Kahlo (Collar of Thorns)."
The most surprising thing for the museum were the people connecting with the artworks: aiming for 100,000 texts over the summer, the institution got over 2m at the end of last week with numbers rising and the museum even started to think about how to make the service available worldwide.
The initiative follows other equally intriguing digital projects such Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum's Rijksstudio, an online archive comprising 125,000 works that gives the chance to users who register for free to access the museum collection and download ultra high-resolution images or sections and details of specific artworks, or addictive games such as London's Victoria & Albert's museum "Design a Wig".
Now there is just one questions left to ask: when will a fashion museum (or the fashion department of a major museum) do the same with its archive? The question remains unanswered for now, but, in the meantime, US based fashion fans can write down "Send me fashion" and maybe receive Sherrie Levine's "Fashion collages", Hal Fischer's "Street Fashion" photographs from the series "Gay Semiotics" and many more artworks from the SFMOMA vaults.
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