my name is mwd

Yesterday Laura and I went to Tate Liverpool to see the very good Gustav Klimt exhibition. In addition to being an interesting exhibition, something else that amazed me was they made great use of the iPod Touch and iPhone to give a multimedia tour to go with the exhibition.

Visitors (subject to demand – they’d ran out of charged devices when we arrived) were able to rent an iPod Touch (or “i-touch” as the signs lovably said) loaded with the multimedia files and nice app that told you about the exhibition and let you give feedback on what you thought of it. An excellent use of modern technology I felt. I’m not one for audio guides, but I liked the combination of guide/prose/feedback that you could navigate at will. Top marks to Tate Liverpool.

Well, almost top marks. You could also use your own iPod Touch or iPhone – just connect to the wifi network they’d made available and off you go. Unfortunately the commentary audio and videos had been uploaded in the wrong format, and wouldn’t play on my iPhone (this wasn’t a problem for people renting the preloaded iPods). Good job I don’t like audio guides :)