Most app-based museum tours work like this: Stop at an artwork, tap in a number, wait for the commentary. But SFMOMA's app was designed to keep your phone in your pocket and your eyes on the art. Codeveloped with a company called Detour, it uses your phone's location-sensing tech to precisely triangulate your position in the museum based on a hi-res virtual map created for the museum by Apple. That way it knows exactly where you are and where you're going—and adjusts its audio accordingly.
SFMOMA's chief content officer, Chad Coerver, calls the app “a cross between This American Life and the movie Her.” And indeed it cops to its slightly eerie capabilities at the outset. When you fire up the app, the voice of public radio veteran Marianne McCune greets you: “The guides will tell you where to go. They'll wait for you, because they know where you are too. [awkward pause] Oh, that sounds creepy—it's not.”
The tours themselves, says Keir Winesmith, head of SFMOMA's digital platforms, can range from “philosophical and emotional” to “hilarious and strange.” If you prefer the latter, select the “This Is Not an Artwork” tour. Actors Martin Starr and Kumail Nanjiani of HBO's Silicon Valley debate whether Marcel Duchamp's urinal, a Dada classic, is a stunning masterpiece or merely junk. “Museum Hack” is a Red Bull–paced tour designed for visitors who'd rather be playing GTA V. Or listen to French high-wire walker Philippe Petit muse on Mark Rothko's troubled relationship with his art: “The more people celebrated his work, the more he became skeptical … Can painting really be transcendent?” If you have more practical needs, a Find the Nearest Bathroom button provides point-to-point audio cues, nudging you in the right direction.
It's an experience that feels immersive and intuitive. And if all that artistic transcendence is too much for you, switch to the “Neighborhood for Art” tour. It takes you out of SFMOMA and into the surrounding area, revealing the museum in the context of the wider world.
