What if you could “Dali-ize” yourself into a work of art? This was the concept behind Gala Contemplating You, where Salvador Dali’s famous work of art turns the viewer into a painting. The concept is simple, take a picture of yourself and we’ll turn you into a one of a kind digital work of art. Shortly thereafter, we show you in the Salvador Dali Museum, next to the real thing for the world to see!
A photo kiosk at the Museum turned visitors’ self-portraits into pixelated replications of the original artwork and projects these new images alongside the original monumental canvas. A corresponding mobile website (galacontemplatingyou.com) allowed virtual visitors – from anywhere around the globe – to submit their photos and become part of the artwork as well. Once displayed, a photo of your work of art next to the original is automatically shared back to you, closing the loop.
We had over 19k submissions gained a ton of press about the project as well as the museum.
The Team
We had a good team for this project. Kia produced the software that controlled the camera mounted in the museum. Marpi, produced the software that controlled the projections and helped with installation. Chris and Pablo had the concept. Patrick and MBK kept us all in check by managing the project.
My Role
Production of the backend, mobile app and in-museum photo kiosk.
Technologies
- In-museum photo kiosk
- Objective-C: native iPad app to do initial scaling/adjustment of images & submit the to the backend through an API
- Server
- JavaScript: Amazon Ec2 instance running NodeJS, Amazon S3 for media storage and Amazon RDS for database
- Mobile App
- HTML5 + CSS3: mobile app allowing users to capture & upload images from anywhere