LACMA Launches a New Multimedia Tour

LACMA has created a dynamic multimedia visitor tour offering a wealth of audio, video, still images, and text to enrich your knowledge of artworks from the museum's collection. The tour is available now via personal digital assistants (PDAs)—with full-color screens and simple controls—that can be checked out free of charge from the museum's welcome centers.

Here's how the tour works: You select an artwork in the gallery, enter the corresponding number on a touch screen, and listen to a brief audio introduction to the work. You are then invited to view the color screen for narrated images and video providing the inside story about numerous aspects of the work—everything from artist and medium to subject and historical context. It's a cool and interactive way to learn about the masterpieces of the LACMA collection, in-depth and at your own pace.

And that's only the beginning. As you move through the galleries you can bookmark your favorite works, saving them to a customized account created automatically when you check out the PDA. Then when you get home, or anywhere with an Internet connection, you can log on to lacma.org and enter your own three-dimensional virtual gallery, already stocked with the artworks you've selected. Don't like the arrangement? That's okay—you can move them. Or examine them up close, access more information from Collections Online, or replay the related multimedia tours.

The multimedia tour will be rolled out in three phases, with the first phase involving thirty-one works from the modern art collection. Works from additional collection areas will be added in phases two and three, set for late 2008 and early 2009.

The multimedia tour is supported by a grant from the James Irvine Foundation.

Available for checkout at the BP Grand Entrance Welcome Centers with valid ID | Free | Available in English, Spanish, and Korean