Vuevelo Enhances Viewer Experience Through AR
Sisa Bueno on the evolution of Vuevelo, and AR platform designed to give depth and context for art lovers.
With a background in documentary filmmaking, virtual reality (VR) production, and film education at the university level, Sisa Bueno is Multimedia Maker and Founder who is passionate about using all forms of media to create cultural and intellectual bridges to help achieve a greater understanding. With a vision to use augmented reality (AR) to create a functional tool for sharing context, Bueno was inspired to join NEW INC as a member in the Museum Technology track, where she and her team of collaborators developed a prototype of her AR platform.
Vuevelo uses AR to overlay various forms of media that visitors can interact with for a deeper exploration with featured works of art. Museums, galleries, and even artists themselves can share their relevant media (images, sketches, writing, behind the scenes videos/audio etc.) related to the artwork that they choose to feature in the Vuevelo app to showcase the artistic process and provide additional contextual information for visitors/users in real time. Bueno hypothesized that a platform like this could help keep art providers connected with their audiences by providing a centralized and convenient tool for art lovers, thereby increasing footfall and engagement within art spaces.
Bueno and her team created a digital prototype of the Vuevelo platform (app and website) and completed two case studies for user testing in less than six months. The first case study focused on testing the user-facing app that art lovers would download into their own devices. April 2019 was the opening of the Havana Biennial Arts Festival in Havana, Cuba, where Vuevelo partnered with Cuban performance artist Carlos Martiel for testing purposes.
All of the contextual media files related to Martiel’s Havana performance were uploaded into the Vuevelo app, including two video and audio interviews with the artist, videos and images of his past and related works, and images of Carlos’ own sketches of this new piece. Curious onlookers were able to have this additional content at their disposal in real time during the entire one-hour performance.
Feedback for Vuevelo was validating and enthusiastic. The audience was delighted to have Vuevelo available to them, as there was very little signage and information provided during the art festival. They most notably appreciated feeling a one-on-one connection with Carlos by having a full understanding of what his piece was about seemingly directly from him.
“It feels really new. It feels super interesting and so necessary and helpful, and something that I would become insanely obsessed with. But it also feels like it is driven by an artist.”
~ Tatiana Mouarbes, Curator at Open Society Foundation attending Havana Biennial Art Festival
The second case study for Vuevelo was conducted in May 2019 at the Wolfsonian Museum at Florida International University in Miami. By this time, Team Vuevelo built the upload dashboard to test the functionality of the platform that is exclusively for art providers. As the art provider in this case, the Wolfsonian staff used the website dashboard to upload their contextual media for five art pieces that they wanted to feature on Vuevelo. Feedback was positive and constructive from user testing with museum staff and decision makers.
Moving forward, Vuevelo will continue to iterate through to the end of 2019 by conducting more users tests with more partners to finalize an MVP. Later in 2020, with the support of increased partnerships, client base, influencers, and social media campaign, Vuevelo will launch version one in the app store.
For more information and updates, please visit www.vuevelo.com or follow on instagram @vuevelo.
Author: Sisa Bueno