New phone app Artory promises to boost Plymouth’s culture circulation

A brand new app promising to be the ‘ultimate guide to Plymouth’s art and culture’ soft-launches next month (December) – and it’s based on i-DAT’s Qualia emotion-measuring technology.

Artory is a free app that leads users to the city’s culture hotspots and then rewards them with exclusive offers. Artory-users will have a chance to earn Art Miles by visiting venues and leaving feedback. These can be exchanged in participating cultural venues all over the city for drinks, discounts and VIP offers.
Artory-users will have a chance to earn Art Miles by visiting venues and leaving feedback. These can be exchanged in participating cultural venues all over the city for drinks, tickets or discounts.
Venues and attractions will be able to fill the app with what’s on listings and events, helping to promote Plymouth’s cultural assets to a connected audience of city residents and visitors.
Art Miles earned in one venue can be used in another venues, thanks to the collaborative approach taken by the organisations involved.

Artory will be available in app stores for both iPhones and Android devices from December 15. The app’s official launch will be in January 2015.

Although what’s on apps are commonplace, the crucial difference with Artory is that it offers visitors incentives for leaving feedback about what they thought about the show, the exhibition, the film or the attraction.

This is because Artory is based on the ‘analytics engine’ Qualia, developed by i-DAT at Plymouth University, University of Warwick and Cheltenham Festivals 2013. This mood-measuring technology makes it easy for app-users to record their feelings and emotions about the art and culture they’ve just viewed.

This is a huge step forward from the usual feedback forms that present culture fans with paperwork just after they’ve experienced a show or a performance.

Evaluating audience feedback is a vital task for culture organisations, giving them important information that can support funding applications or direct future programming. So by making that data-collection easy, fun and tangibly rewarding, Artory helps both the city’s culture attractions and its visitors.
The app’s launch marks the culmination of a year of work for arts organisations working together to boost local culture, despite Plymouth’s unsuccessful bid to be City of Culture 2017.

This city-wide initiative has been led, designed and produced by i-DAT and Barbican-based Plymouth Arts Centre (in conjunction with Elixel and the Plymouth Culture Guide Group: Theatre Royal, Barbican Theatre, Plymouth City Museum and Gallery, The Gallery Plymouth College of Art, Peninsula Arts Plymouth University, KARST, Ocean Studios, Take a Part, Effervescent, Plymouth Dance, Plymouth Culture Board).

The app is funded by i-DAT, Plymouth Arts Centre, Destination Plymouth, Plymouth City Council and Plymouth Culture Board.

The software behind Artory is open-source, meaning that once it has been piloted in Plymouth, it will be available for use by other cities to promote their cultural activity.

Venues participating at present include Theatre Royal, Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery, Ocean Studios, Peninsula Arts at Plymouth University, Barbican Theatre, KARST, The Gallery at Plymouth College of Art, Take a Part, and Plymouth Dance.