This is brilliant stuff … famous works of art digitized and playfully integrated with old-school mechanical devices to make them interactive.
The exhibit is called Mechanical Masterpieces – a collection of paintings reimagined by artist Neil Mendoza for the 21st century.
Optimized for short attention spans, it allows viewers to poke, switch, disco, inflate and water paintings to their heart’s content. The installation was created for The Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh.
It’s a great lesson for anyone thinking about interactive displays that great, engaging work is not about the sophistication of the technology, it’s about the idea and execution. You could do some interesting things, I suppose, with cameras and sensors, but this simple mechanical thing has no learning curve … and the results are fun!