When the COVID pandemic started and everyone was forced to shelter in place, especially in San Francisco, I started working on a project that would still allow for access to artwork at home. I wrote an application for the TV screen that would access some of the collection APIs that museums have been making available to the public. I used AirTable to store the APIs and some preferred tags related to certain genres (Japanese art at the Met for example), and curated a list of museums we would be interested in viewing at home – Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, The Met in NYC, the NASA image collection, etc…

The app is written in React and needed to resolve differences in the API data calls between the different museums, display larger versions of the images on the screen, allow a local user to pause, fast forward, or “save” an image they liked using a mobile web interface. I added some other features like coloring the matte according to a complimentary color in the artwork, and in the future I will programmatically control my receiver to launch and play the artwork at specified times.

Kid touching artwork on a screen
Example of artwork on the screen and a curious viewer.
An artwork on the screen from The Met by Umberto Boccioni
An artwork on the screen from The Met by Umberto Boccioni
A Japanese sword hilt and collar on the screen from The Met collection.
A Japanese sword hilt and collar on the screen from The Met collection.
A Japanese sword hilt and collar from The Met collection.
A Japanese sword hilt and collar from The Met collection as it looks in the app.
Art by Aaron Koblin from the Cooper Hewitt.
Art by Aaron Koblin from the Cooper Hewitt.
Japanese panel painting of the Orchid Pavilion Gathering.
Japanese panel painting of the Orchid Pavilion Gathering.
Saving an image results in the image and metadata being sent to a slack channel.
Saving an image results in the image and metadata being sent to a slack channel.