news release

(London) – Acoustiguide has developed five exceptional tours in association with the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, for their two autumn exhibitions: Leonardo da Vinci: Experience, Experiment and Design, which runs from 14 September 2006 to 7 January 2007 and exhibits a fascinating collection of illustrations by one of the greatest minds in history; and At Home in Renaissance Italy, which runs from 5 October 2006 to 7 January 2007 and provides a insight into the luxurious living of the Renaissance period that influenced the art of its time.

Leonardo da Vinci: Experience, Experiment and Design is complemented by both an audio guide and a cutting edge multimedia tour. Delivered on a hand-held device, originally designed as a gaming unit, animations, video clips and still images of the highest quality are carefully used to create an involving, enlightening tour. Animations of Leonardo drawings, an ox-heart dissection, an MRI scan and recreations of Leonardo’s musical instrument designs by potter Richard Baxter, are only a few of the video contributions which help to bring this fascinating exhibition to life. The tour also includes audio contributions from the curators Martin Kemp and Thereza Wells.

Amanda Vickery, on Radio Four’s Saturday Review, commented: “The Acoustiguide...is really like a well made programme…having a narrator talking you through everything and talking you through what you should look at”, whilst Kwame Kwei-Armah on BBC2’s Newsnight thought “the Multimedia handset was wonderful.”.

To widen access to this captivating information Acoustiguide partnered with Eyegaze, a Deaf communications company, to create a British Sign Language tour for the exhibition. The tour is presented by native sign-language interpreters on the same device as the multimedia tour. Video playback is of the highest quality, resulting in a seamless and engaging sign-language tour.
Visitor feedback for the guides has been extremely positive with many favourable comments, such as:

“It was all excellent. I did particularly enjoy the videos on the handheld device.”

“This really helped since the exhibits are so small - you could watch/listen to them while waiting on a space in front of each one to open up. It also helped show the 'objectives' of the books, for example.”

“Just excellent!”

For At Home in Renaissance Italy a fact filled audio tour in English and Italian is available. The tours explore the role of the household in Renaissance art and culture and guides visitors through three recreated rooms, the sala, camera and scrittoio. Interview contributions from the curators, Marta Ajmar-Wollheim and Flora Dennis, as well as other leading experts provide a fresh perspective on this classic period.