‘Magic Tate Ball’ is a new location-based mobile app from Tate, inspired by the iconic Magic 8 Ball, where players shake the ball in search of an answer to one of life’s mysteries. The difference is, when you shake your phone, this clever app presents you with an artwork that is linked to your surroundings. Using date, time-of-day, geographical location, live weather data and ambient noise levels the app will trawl through a selection of artworks from Tate’s Collection for the best match.
With artworks from Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Claude Monet and many more, Magic Tate Ball presents a new, playful approach to discovering art. Each work comes with a twitter-sized informative write-up and a hidden bonus feature in the app can only be activated when the user visits Tate Modern.
Magic Tate Ball was devised by digital design agency Thought Den, in collaboration with Tate Media, and is sponsored by Bloomberg as part of their ongoing support of digital interpretation at Tate Modern. It’s the third in a series of mobile apps aimed at introducing new audiences to art. The others in the series are Race Against Time, an app that blends mobile gaming with art history – the user plays as a wily chameleon, traveling through the history of modern art in order to defeat evil Dr Greyscale’s plan to remove all the colour from the world; and the award-winning app Tate Trumps, a digital card game in which you pit artworks from Tate’s Collection against each other in a fast paced game of trumps.
To see how it works, head over to the Tate website and check out the video http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/video/magic-tate-ball
Download for Apple:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/magic-tate-ball/id451772129?mt=8
Download for OVI: http://store.ovi.com/content/273944