Google’s new arts and culture platform promise to be the one resource you need to jump and dive the current fashion exhibitions around the world. From the comfort of your nearest screen.
Not so long ago, I hired an assistant to help with a styling project that involved a very specific aesthetic that took me a while to work out with the photographer who hired me to create the looks for the model. My assistant had to go look for specific items in colors and shapes that could work and I started giving her references. When I mentioned Klimt her expression went lost. I kept talking but I could notice her anxiety. I interrupted myself to ask her directly: “Do you know who Gustav Klimt was?”. She got a bit nervous while denying with her head. I asked her to google the name so she could get the reference but I knew that a lot of non-related information and images could come up, making the research more confusing and length. This story came up from my memories when I learned about the fantastic new project from Google.
Google pull off the dust sheets and introduced the new project from Google Cultural Institute (no, I neither knew that existed until now) the Google Arts & Culture website and apps. The app lets you explore anything from the origin of the zebra stripes to the use of the color turquoise in the art, and everything in between. If you want fashion you can find it front and center of the website home page, by the description of “We Wear Culture. The stories behind what we wear”.
The experiment the GCI got into is huge: More than one thousand museums from around the world partnered with the platform to compile works and artifacts that allow the visitor to immerse in cultural experiences across art, history, and wonders of the world. While this is just the beginning of their beta website, the mobile apps for iOS and Android combine useful information such as museum hours with augmented and virtual reality experiences through Google Cardboards. Also, find your favorite artworks, create your own collections and share them with friends through the app. You can also subscribe to the new Google Arts & Culture YouTube channel. Find out what Kandinsky and Kanye West have in common and meet the New York-based “cyborg artist” Neil Harbisson.
I am eager to get lost in this app and explore all I can of this project. I am especially excited to jump into the fashion project and learn about trends origins. There is so much information that I am not sure if I will know when to stop binge clicking on every exhibition, crossed information, YouTube video that make my inner nerd feel like in heaven.
This is a rabbit hole I think I won’t try to leave for a while.
