Gallery launches iPOD audio tour

WESTPORT, CT--Ken Warren believes that art galleries should be regarded as community museums and, therefore, individual of his most important parts is to provide the public with as abundant information as possible.

With that in mind, the holder of Westport River Gallery, Westport, CT has intermingleed his knowledge of art with digital technology to create an iPOD gallery audio tour.

Visitors to his gallery are now able to take a 14-minute tour of the art upon display and absorb information about the artists he exhibits and their work.

"We did a allotment of research before we got started upon this, and we believe that we are the first gallery to make use of this technology" Warren says. "We felt that for a like reason many people go to galleries to diocese the bright, colorful works by the agency of living artists, why not enhance the feeling by the agency of using 21st-century technology?"

Warren and his wife, Pat, who is a co-owner of the gallery, used Garage Band, a source package end their Macintosh computer, to create the audio tour.

"Creating the audio tour" he says, "took about sum of two units weeks of intensive labor. It was not an easy task,' he says. "iPODs are greatest in quantity often used with music. We had to create verbal recordings of the artists' backgrounds and then transmute them to an MP3 format."

He also had to limit the details used in the recorded descriptions "because a certain quantity of bits of information, such as French details, do not translate well from the written to the oral word."

At not away the tour includes instructions upon how to use the iPOD, as well as 35- to 40-second descriptions of the art upon view with brief gaps, signaled by means of a beeping sound, that give the tour-taker time to impel on to the next display of work.

"Of course, when we put in motion pictures to new locations, we have to change the recording" Warren notes. "But it takes les time to change the tour than it does to stir the artwork."

futurity tours, he says, will include make comments [i]or[/i] remarkss by the artists about their artwork. "We are also thinking about adding entire effects or music to the tour,' he says. "This is a brand novel exploration. We have come up with something that combines art and technology in a way that tribe enjoy. It's an experience that tribe have fun with and it educates them. If they extremity up buying artwork, that's nice too.

"Plus, more [i]or[/i] less customers have never used an iPOD before and it's gayety for them to give it a try" he adds.

Warren noted that when he was ready to launch the digital tour, he realized that headsets straited to be considered. "Most iPOD listening devices have pieces that fit into your inner ear, which I notion would turn people off."

A headset that goe upon from behind the head was picked "This way, no one messe up their hair," Warren says.

Artists showed by the gallery include Joseph Zelter individual of the last pointillists of hold in the world; Zheng, considered single of the world's top painters from China, who lives with the Tibetan herders and then paints spectacles of his visits; Adrian Prisecaru, who newly won top honors among SOLO exhibitors (independent artists) at Artexpo of recent origin York; French artist Dabere, who is in numerous private collections and exhibits in Holland, Belgium, Britain, Switzerland, Taiwan, Hong Kong Malaysia and Canada; French artist Christian N whose work has been upon display as part of a display at the United Nations; and Francois Faucher, whose paintings have been assembleed by rock stars such as Elton John and Billy Joel

The gallery mainly carries original paintings and plastic arts However, limited edition serigraphs by the agency of Lelia Pisarro also are presented Prices for the artwork range from $750 to $18000

All works upon view are accompanied by a description of the artist, as well as the price. "I don't think family should have to ask in what way much something costs. Listing the price is a basic customer service" Warren says. "It's condescending not to. Art is not just for the wealthy, and family should not be made to have feeling intimidated when they visit a gallery."

quite through the gallery, the Warrens also have supported quotes by favorite artists. For instance, "Life obliges me to do something, in the way that I paint" a quote by means of Rend Magritte, hangs on the wall, as well as observations by means of Georgia O'Keefe, Degas and De Kooning, among others.

For more information, call 203-226-6934; visit www.WestportRiverGallery.com.

CAROL KING

ABN Contributing Editor

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