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Acoustiguide, Tate Modern Launch 20 Hours of Programming
Comprehensive Audio Tour for Adults, Children, Visually Impaired, Foreign-Language Visitors; Bloomberg News Sponsors Tate Audio for £1.2 Million
London's Tate Modern opened in spring 2000 with Acoustiguide as its audio interpretation partner. To complement the museum's world-renowned collection and acclaimed architectural design, Acoustiguide produced more than 20 hours of interpretive programming. Visitors may choose from an unprecedented selection of audio tours for adults, children, foreign-language visitors and people with visual impairments.
The program, titled Tate Audio, is offered on the new Acoustiguide 2000 Series Wands, which feature extensive memory capacity and fully lit LCD screens for text and logos. The audio program is sponsored by Bloomberg News and costs just £1 to rent.
"Tate Modern is the first premiere cultural institution to apply the advanced features of the Acoustiguide 2000 Series - the audio tour system will grow and expand along with the needs of the museum and its visitors," said Barbara Roberts, President and CEO of Acoustiguide. "The system was designed with corporate sponsorship in mind, and this was a key point for Bloomberg News sponsorship. The Bloomberg News logo is displayed on the two-inch LCD screen and silk-screened onto designated flat areas of the wand itself."
The public response to Tate Audio has been overwhelmingly positive, prompting one visitor to write: "This was the best £1's worth I've ever had. It made the whole gallery come alive ... an absolutely fabulous afternoon, without this it would not have been so enjoyable. Well done Tate!"
"Tate Modern gave Acoustiguide a complex brief to provide a series of audio tours which interpreted the new thematic collection displays in an innovative way for targeted audiences," said Toby Jackson, Head of Interpretation and Education for Tate Modern. "The Gallery is very pleased with the working relations between Acoustiguide and Tate staff. We established agreed principles for working together and for audio content and, together with highly professional tour producers, we have provided a range of excellent tours, each of which is specifically conceived for particular audiences."
Collection Tour
The three-hour collection tour begins with a personal welcome from Director Lars Nittve and includes curators' introductions and artists' commentaries on Tate Modern's four themed displays: Landscape-Matter-Environment, Still Life-Object-Real Life, History-Memory-Society and Nude-Action-Body. Visitors move through the galleries at their own pace and may listen to the commentaries in any order. Artworks featured on the tour have corresponding numbers that are entered on the Wand's keypad. This tour is available in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish.
For the collection tour, Acoustiguide incorporated new interviews and archival material from a variety of art-world luminaries, including: Francis Bacon, Nan Goldin, David Hockney, Jenny Holzer, Barnett Newman, Claes Oldenburg, Jackson Pollock and Sam Taylor-Wood. These artists interpret their own work or lend insight into the art of their contemporaries. Tate Audio listeners are also treated to sound recordings by Josephine Baker, David Bowie, John Cage and Yoko Ono related to the art on display. In addition, the tour features non-traditional commentators such as George Melly, jazz musician and collector of surrealist art, speaking on Magritte's painting The Reckless Sleeper, and novelist A.S. Byatt on Matisse's sculpture Backs. The diversity of the commentators reinforces Tate Modern's pluralistic approach to interpreting modern art.
Architecture Tour
The striking renovation of Bankside power station, home of Tate Modern, and its dramatic centerpiece, the Turbine Hall, have made headlines worldwide. In response to the interest in Tate Modern's architecture, Acoustiguide produced a 14-minute commentary on the design by architect Jacques Herzog of the Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron. This tour is available in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish.
In Herzog's words: "We wanted to have large spaces and tall galleries on every floor, so the curators could install all kinds of art on every floor. ... We wanted to surprise the people, we wanted to give them a possibility to breathe, to stretch their body, because this is a very big museum and it's very important to base everything on the idea of change and variety, rather than on the idea of monotony and monumentality."
Director's Tour
Tate Audio allows the director to connect with the thousands of visitors to London's newest cultural attraction. For this reason, Acoustiguide encourages clients to include executives and curators in museum programs. On the one-hour director's tour, visitors feel as though they are insiders, listening to a candid conversation between Director Lars Nittve and BBC journalist Tim Marlow. This tour is available in English.
Nittve offers his insight on highlights of the collection, such as Picasso's The Three Dancers: "He is definitely one of the great geniuses - the level of inventing and reinventing and reusing old languages. No one during the 20th century did something even close to what Picasso did. ... Whatever he does with brush in hand, it just sits there and it looks amazing."
Children's Tour
Tate Audio's entertaining children's tour covers highlights of the Landscape and Still Life galleries. Broadcaster Michael Rosen and kids from the museum's "Trail Team" lead 45-minute adventures on each theme. From Bonnard to Brancusi, Monet to Matisse, the program prompts young visitors to walk through the galleries and locate artworks based on clues about the materials used or recognizable items depicted. The children's tour is available in English and was the subject of a recent feature article in the arts section of The Independent on Sunday, which judged it the best and most innovative audio tour of its kind.
Tour for Visually Impaired Visitors
Acoustiguide has extensive experience adapting audio programs and equipment for disabled people, and increasingly, museums are creating tours for the visually impaired. At Tate Modern, this three-hour, English-language tour includes extended descriptions of the artworks. For example, the commentary on Jackson Pollock's painting Summertime No. 9A begins: "It's a long thin canvas. It's about a meter high, and very long; it would take you as much as nine paces to walk its whole length. On a creamy canvas background paint has been dribbled and poured, flicked and spattered, making lines and blobs. ..."
About Acoustiguide
More than 45 years ago, Acoustiguide invented the audio tour, and the company has remained at the leading edge of creativity and technology ever since. Acoustiguide provides audio programs for museums, heritage and historic sites, tourism attractions, zoos,
aquaria and corporate clients in 22 countries around the world. Acoustiguide offers complete creative and production services, the most advanced audio technology and comprehensive on-site management.
To plan a trip to Tate Modern, visit www.tate.org.uk.
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