Geurilla art tours

There are a group of Marymount Manhattan College (New York City) students who are sticking it to the man (or, more appropriately, working to get rid of those annoying audio sticks at museums). These students had an amazing idea! They have combined the power of the Internet, blogs, podcasts, the art community, and iPods (and other portable, digital music players) to change how we look (and listen) to the museum art.

If you've been to an art museum, you undoubtedly have seen a flock of people with baton-like sticks protruding from their ears. These audio tours are wonderful for the art lover who wants to know more than can be provided on a 3x5 wall card, but they offer a distinctly singular point of view - the museum's. Like any other critical field, there exist a host of opinions on art, and who is to say that any one museum's point of view is the best?

Well, Art Mobs are out to provide people with an alternative set of opinions, along with the traditional facts. These students are collecting art reviews, using the internet and their blog to collect opinions. They then are turned into podcasts, and made available via the Internet to art lovers... for FREE!

I suspect this is where museums like the MoMA start to get angry. While these students are fostering the possibility of a new generation of art lovers, they also compromise the museum's ability to make money off their own audio tours. Played on digital music players like an iPod, these tours do not disturb other museum goers, but probably disturb a struggling art museum community's bottom line.

The other issue here is the quality of the podcasts. I have not tried one yet, but I imagine there has to be some question over the validitiy of their sources, their accuracy, and, in some cases, their decency. I am not much worried about the decency part, because it is probably nice to have an uncensored and frank account of some artist's life and works. The accuracy part does worry me a bit. Is it worth having a new art community that loves art, but has misinformation?

Right now, I vote yes, because there has always been misinformation, and you can correct misinformation easier than you can create a new love for art.

Read more in this New York Times article.