The next time you scan a QR code into a slot, you may find yourself talking to a digital lecturer, thanks to the new technical technology platform CONTXT. The idea behind the customizable software, which is essentially a gallery chatbot, was inspired by its founders’ shared belief that art appreciation should be a conversation. Every work of art has a story, but the challenge has always been that there may not be anyone immediately available to tell it. Wall text cannot answer specific questions, and by the time a gallery visitor or museum-goer returns home, they may have forgotten what they wanted to know. “People in galleries often have questions about what they see but don’t have access to curatorial insight or real-time background knowledge,” Lukas Amacher, a curator, art collector and entrepreneur who launched the project with developer David Simon, told the Observer. “With CONTXT, visitors can ask questions about the artwork and get answers sourced directly from the institution’s knowledge base rather than from general Internet results.”
I was surprised to learn that Amacher, the former managing director of… 1OF1 digital art collectionI never learned programming. But “the distinction between computer user and developer is slowly evaporating,” he said in an interview with Seth Goldstein for The New York Times. Let’s vibe! Podcast. As Simon built the platform’s core structure, Amacher was able to experiment with its functionality, with the goal of building “the richest citation-ready contextual layer for art and culture.”
And this is CONTXT, an artificial intelligence system that is trained, project by project, on every catalog entry, article, curator’s note, and piece of exhibition explanatory text. On the visitor side, CONTXT, via a familiar chat interface, provides instant answers to questions, compressing large amounts of material into meaningful conversations about artists and artworks that can occur while the user is in the gallery. For institutions, it provides a comprehensive digital knowledge repository and analytics to track direct visitor engagement, helping curators understand which pieces and ideas resonate most. “It helps bridge the gap between the insights a curator might provide in person and the self-guided experience of visitors who might struggle to access a deeper interpretive context,” Amacher explained.
While CONTXT is still in its early stages, it has already attracted interest from museums (particularly small museums with limited mediation resources), galleries, corporate collections, and art galleries. Earlier this month, the company Launched public search preview From the catwalk in collaboration with Steve Sachs’s Dual Shape Exhibition, which includes the current show, “Maya Man’s”starpower“And the exhibitions go back to 2002. We took them for a spin, QA-test style, first asking questions about the artists and performances, then veering into more exotic territory: we asked them to solve physics equations, entered 900 words of Lorem Ipsum text, and asked for recipes for soup and then for the artist Alexander Repin. We sat down with Amacher – serious questions in hand this time – to find out what CONTXT might mean for the future of how organizations work and experience sharing art. People.
How did CONTXT come about?
My co-founder, David, and I have been in the art world most of our lives. David is an art collector, artist, and developer, and I’ve always been a collector as well. My first major acquisition was a Fred Sandback drawing. We both realized that we looked at art as a big conversation. Our project came about when we saw how limited access to knowledge is in the art world, especially in museums and galleries. If you visit an exhibition with a curator, you can access their insights, which enriches the experience, but without that, it can be difficult to understand the deeper context. With the advent of the MBA, we saw an opportunity to use this technology to compress the time it takes to delve into the context of an artwork — from hours of research to seconds of conversation. So, we started experimenting with how to enhance personal art experiences with MBA.
What does CONTXT implementation look like for galleries and museums? What do they need to do to sign up?
We build context libraries. The first layer is the knowledge base, where you input everything — from interviews with curators to images of artworks, reference materials like exhibition guides and articles, and even multimedia like videos. This allows visitors to interact with a comprehensive range of information. The second layer involves adapting this knowledge to different types of audiences, such as museum visitors or corporate collectors, allowing specific voices to communicate with different groups. The third layer focuses on analytics, where we track which works are asked the most, what types of questions visitors ask, and what ideas resonate most. This provides curators with valuable data to understand what attracts audiences.
What is the experience of the visitor who uses the tool?
For the visitor, it is a chat interface, like the ones we all use, whether on ChatGPT or other platforms. The visitor scans the QR code in the gallery, which opens the chat on their phone. They can ask questions about the exhibition or specific works, and the tool will provide answers sourced from the curated knowledge base, ensuring they are ready for citation. This gives visitors the ability to have meaningful, real-time conversations about the artwork they are interacting with without waiting hours to do research or being exposed to misleading information. The tool also allows them to share ideas directly on social media, which is a fun twist on the “Instagrammable art” trend. Additionally, visitors can save their interactions and create a personal archive of their experience at the exhibition.
Can galleries and museums use CONTXT for more than just exhibitions?
Yes, of course. We are also developing a tool for galleries that will allow them to create an interactive, mobile-friendly experience where visitors can interact directly with artwork descriptions and ideas. Instead of just scrolling through a PDF or reading a basic poster, visitors can have this dynamic conversation, ask questions, and delve deeper into the work. This feature is especially useful for galleries that want to present their work in a more attractive and modern way, integrating touch with digital.
What feedback have you received from artists? Do they worry about losing control of their narratives?
I love that you asked this! It’s something we plan to address in the future. We want to give artists and curators the power to control the narrative. Artists can create their own knowledge bases – mood boards of their practices – where they can share their data, inspirations and ideas. Curators can then connect the context of their exhibition to the artist’s knowledge base, allowing them to better represent the artist’s vision. This tool is not just for visitors; The entire ecosystem is about representing ideas authentically and letting artists drive the conversation.
Are there any concerns regarding data privacy, especially since you are collecting interaction data and people’s questions may skew personal?
The information we collect is more than just an overview. For example, galleries can see which works are asked about most, what types of questions people ask, and how to interact with artworks. We collect questionable ideas Types– Whether people are asking about biographical details, conceptual meanings, or organizational narratives. But the actual data is anonymized, so it’s more about helping curators understand what ideas resonate with the audience rather than tracking individuals.
How has institutional interest been so far? Are the challenges that museums and galleries are looking to solve the ones you expected?
We spoke to many museums, galleries and corporate groups. Interestingly, many small and medium-sized museums have approached them because their limited mediation budgets need a cost-effective way to help visitors interact with their exhibitions. The ability to provide multilingual support and make the experience more intuitive is a big draw. We’ve also seen interest from art galleries, which could benefit from offering deeper engagement for visitors who aren’t necessarily there to make a purchase but want to learn more.
What is the next step for the project?
We’re rolling out pilots, and soon, we’ll be ready to go. We are excited to see how it is received and how visitors engage with the artwork when they can interact with a range of ideas in real time. The overall goal is to give both exhibitors and visitors the tools to facilitate deeper, more meaningful conversations about art.
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