Jump Into a Painting

   Remember that scene in Mary Poppins where everyone jumps into the sidewalk sketches and rides the merry-go-round? Well, now you almost can. Almost, meaning that Geo Coded Art still needs to meet their KickStarter goal. 

  Already available for off-site viewing on their  website, Geo uses existing digital map technology (Google maps) to locate where famous paintings were painted. The goal is to illuminate both painting and geography. On their website you can search by artists, painting or region. Say you search for Achille Carelli's "Gulf of Solerno"; a Google map will pop up and show you exactly where the painting was painted including the artists viewpoint. 

  The hope is with the mobile app, you can be wandering the streets of wherever and your phone will alert you when you are in proximity of where a piece of art was made. You will then be guided to the site. Or, if you feel like it, you could build a whole vacation with the app, going from site to site. 

   This could be an interesting platform for viewing art in social contexts, are the house in Monet's paintings still standing in Norway? Has the Duomo changed since Newman painted it? The sights and sounds of the location could give you insight into what emotions were driving the artist. A downside is, there you are in France, Italy or the UK, standing with your smartphone, looking at it and then at the landscape. If people use this as more as a guide, rather than a defacto map, we can see the possibilities. However, being partial to abstract art and sculpture, how about adding those to the mix? Rothko's paintings for the Four Seasons or the dessert landscapes that inspired so much of Gerogia O'Keefe's paintings?