A new online interactive tour of Tate Modern has been launched on Tate Online, the UK’s number one arts website, by BBC News reporter and arts enthusiast Andrew Marr. Explore Tate Modern, developed jointly by Tate and online partner BT, has been completely transformed allowing users to log on for a virtual experience of visiting Tate Modern and providing a useful guide to the recent rehang, UBS Openings: Tate Modern Collection, which opened on 23 May.
The new additions to the site allow web users to interact with a timeline to find out how the Collection is distributed across the 20th Century or research a particular movement with the help of glossary definitions. Users can explore non-gallery spaces and can even create their own personal ‘virtual’ tour of the gallery. The map format allows users to view a layout of the building and hone in on individual galleries to see exactly which works are on display in each room. Users can then select their favourite works and save their own personal tour of Tate Modern.
Explore Tate Modern also provides interpretation material, such as a comprehensive timeline, written captions for works and audio clips drawn from a wide range of sources. These additional items allow detailed examination of the works and provide explanations of different displays.
Andrew Marr comments:
The concept of being guided through the recent rehang of the Collection at Tate Modern, and being able to explore it from your own home or from wherever you are in the world, is quite unique. Thanks to Tate and BT, Explore Tate Modern offers a depth of information and interactivity about the artworks on display that is groundbreaking, making art accessible to everyone, everywhere.
Jemima Rellie, head of digital programmes at Tate, comments:
‘Explore Tate Modern extends the redisplay of the artworks to audiences all around the world, offering visitors online and onsite enhanced opportunities to interact with the new Collection displays. It has never been easier for visitors to locate a work or movement of interest or indeed to re-visit the space that captured their imagination.’
Paul Simon, head of sponsorship and partner marketing at BT, comments:
‘The continued rapid expansion of broadband is providing huge opportunities to broaden access and participation in the arts to new target audiences via the internet. Explore Tate Modern is a fantastic initiative which adds further value to the award winning content that BT and Tate have jointly developed over the years for Tate Online.’
BT provides creative design services and technical support to Tate Online that have helped make www.tate.org.uk, the UK’s No 1 arts website. BT’s in-house team uses the possibilities of broadband to create highly innovative designs, interfaces and interactive videos for Tate.
Since the BT and Tate Online partnership began in 2001, it has been nominated for 14 industry awards. Visitor figures continue to grow and are approaching 1 million unique visitors per month.