ARTstor Mobile’s Flashcard Feature

      

Just in time for finals! You can use image groups in ARTstor to quiz yourself for Image ID tests when you’re using ARTstor on a mobile device. The image groups can be saved in your own personal work folder, or be in an institutional group that your instructor created for you.

After opening the image group, open an image, and click the link below that reads “Switch to Flash Card.” This will allow you to click through the images in the group without providing caption information. In order to bring up the caption information, tap the center of the image. To move back and forth in the image group, use the left and right arrows.

To check out the flashcard feature, navigate to ARTstor Mobile on your device and get studying!

Via ARTstor Blog

 

Internet Archive Companion App

The Internet Archive is a collection of digitized or born-digital materials with cultural significance. It is comprised of many unique collections including NASA images, Project Gutenberg, Classic Comics, live music by the Grateful Dead, and of course the ever-popular Wayback Machine. The Internet Archive is free and open to the public, and since most of their materials are in the public domain, they are available for downloading or streaming in a variety of file formats—for example, full text books can be viewed as PDFs or as EPUB files for your e-reader. The Internet Archive is free and open to the public, and collaborates with universities and museums around the world to ingest new collections and materials.

The recently launched Internet Archive Companion app makes the collections of the Internet Archive easily accessible on your iPad or iPhone. The developer’s website notes:

It’s a free app enabling you to browse the enormous collections of videos/movies, music/sound, books and images in an intimate, consumable way! Flip though the pages of scanned books, or flip through the text copies of books, including many from Project Gutenberg (to name just one of the many sources of The Internet Archive.)

For more information, visit the Internet Archive Companion app or stop by the VRC to test it out.

The Art Institute of Chicago’s Indoor GPS App

Ever find yourself lost and aimlessly wandering around the Art Institute of Chicago?

Now there’s an app for that.

The Art Institute announced Wednesday that it’s the first museum in the world to create a free “indoor GPS app” to make art more accessible to locals, out-of-towners and those who simply can’t find their way around a Degas painting or a Rodin sculpture.

The app provides customized tours that take guests on journeys through the museum. Tours are organized by occasions (such as a first date, family outing), theme (Chicago artists, fashion in art, etc.) and collections (American folk art, contemporary art, African art). Tours are also organized by time, whether guests plan on spending an entire day or just a few hours.

Via DNAInfo.com.

10 Alternatives to Instagram

You may have heard a lot lately about Instagram, but it’s not the only photo manipulation application out there. PCMag.com recently wrote about 10 Awesome Alternatives to Instagram:

Instagram isn’t the only app out there that can rewind your photos 40 years; there’s a slew of apps for both iPhone and Android that can do the same things—and, in some cases, even more. Many of the apps even work in tandem with Instagram, offering an arsenal of filters and effects for your photo-editing pleasure, and then allow you to export your photo to share on Instagram. Though not all of the apps are free, they’re definitely worth the price of your morning coffee.

Via iLibrarian.

Google Goggles at the Met (and Beyond!)

Google Goggles is a mobile app that uses images to search the Internet. Not long ago Google introduced their reverse-image search to the web; the concept of Google Goggles is similar, but takes functionality even further. For example: not sure who designed that famous building you’re seeing as a tourist in Rome? Having trouble translating that Italian dinner menu? Want more information about a book, logo, bottle of wine, or painting? There’s now an app for that!

Additionally, in collaboration with Google, the Metropolitan Museum of Art has made 76,000 two-dimensional works of art from their collection accessible through Google Goggles. If you want to know more about a work of art exhibited in the museum, you can take a picture and search for it via Google Goggles to quickly see authoritative and contextual information from the Met. This information will also display if you see a work belonging to the Met in a book, on a banner, or elsewhere in the world. Check out this video from the Metropolitan Museum of Art for an illustrated introduction to the partnership.

The app is free and available on both iPhone (iOS 4.0) and Android (2.1+) platforms. If you’ve already downloaded iOS 5.0 for iPhone, the app won’t work, but we hope that a fix for this is under development!

Via Technology in the Arts.

Bayerische Staatsbibliotek for iPad

The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek now presents 20 manuscripts from its voluminous Oriental collection in the form of an application for iPads and iPhones. The “Oriental books” are available free of charge in the Apple App Store.

The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek also presents the application “Famous books – Treasures of the Bavarian State Library” for iPads and iPhones, which features 52 highlights of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek’s collections.

See Historical Photographs of Your Neighborhood with WhatWasThere

WhatWasThere is a project based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which combines GIS data with historic photographs, including many of architecture. Photographs are linked to their location of origin on maps, allowing visitors to the website (or users of the free mobile app) to take a virtual historic tour through cities and neighborhoods. Users may also contribute their own photographs.

The premise is simple: provide a platform where anyone can easily upload a photograph with two straightforward tags to provide context: Location and Year. If enough people upload enough photographs in enough places, together we will weave together a photographic history of the world (or at least any place covered by Google Maps). So wherever you are in the world, take a moment to upload a photograph and contribute to history!

Soviet Arts Experience

The Soviet Arts Experience is a 16-month-long collaborative showcase of artistic work created under the Politburo of the Soviet Union, from 1917 to 1991. This series of programs includes works of art, dance, concerts, lectures, and classes. Twenty-six of Chicago’s prominent arts institutions will present events through 2012.

A Soviet Arts Experience iPhone app has been created to help navigate the showcase’s many events. It includes embedded Google Maps and is available for free to download through the iTunes store.

 

Using GIS to Turn Movement into Art

Many of us have heard recent revelations about the kinds of geographic information stored on our mobile devices, including iPhones and iPads. On the lighter side of location tracking, some artists are using this kind of data to create art based on people’s movements and interactions. One such example is Maria Scileppi’s Living Brushstroke project. Her video Anthem includes visualizations from events like Burning Man and the 2010 Chicago Marathon. According to the project’s blog, a Living Brushstroke iPhone app will be available soon.

Via O’Reilly Radar.