VUEguide by Ubiquity launches at Museum of Anthropology

The VUEguide, a handheld multimedia device that provides visitors with 'curatorial on demand' video, audio, graphics, and animation, launched at Vancouver's Museum of Anthropology (MOA) today. It is the first permanent installation of its kind at a museum in Canada and among the first in the world.

The device, designed and produced by Vancouver's Ubiquity Interactive, provides museum visitors with personalized, location-aware, rich media interpretation as they make their way through the galleries. Towering totem poles, monumental carvings, feast dishes, and fragments of Northwest Coast dwellings and artifacts are augmented with a combination of expert commentary, informative narration, archival video and photographs, and contextualizing animation, all delivered to visitors' personal screens. The system uses location-sensing technologies to match rich media interpretation to the visitor's location in the museum.   Instead of visitors having to seek out the interpretive content related to the artifacts and artworks on display, the content now finds the visitor.

"The effect of this device for the future of museums is nothing short of transformational," says MOA Director Dr. Anthony Shelton.   "In place of the traditional institutional voice of the institution, the VUEguide allows for the expression of multiple voices and perspectives, leading visitors to explore the collections both conceptually and visually."

The VUEguide by Ubiquity was produced with the participation of Telefilm Canada, Administrator of the Canada New Media Fund, funded by the Department of Canadian Heritage. Project content partners are MOA, CBC Television, and the Canadian Museum of Civilization.