Art Maps - Mapping The Multiple Meanings Of Place

Digital technology enables us to prospect, generate, assemble and share eclectic materials, creating virtual journeys, stories or exhibitions through the internet, viewed on computer but also on location via mobile devices. How does the ability to create and curate in this way enhance or transform our access to and understanding of art, as well as our experience of place? What kind of meanings are we making for ourselves and others? And how are the creative responses of audiences viewed and valued in relation to the museum's curated collection? This article explores these questions through the development of Art Maps, a web and mobile application that enables people to locatively and creatively explore the relationship between art and place. Through participant research we are examining possibilities for a more open approach to interpreting Tate's digitised collection of art, testing the notional democratic shift from the museum as keeper of knowledge to co-creator with the audience.