Be History-Smart with Gateway Gallery’s Augmented Reality Mobile Exhibit

In celebration of August as History Month, Gateway Gallery – the art museum of Araneta City –launches the full SiningSaysay Augmented Reality Program which can be accessed using the Gateway Gallery Pocket Museum mobile app.

Developed during the pandemic, this interactive mobile program enables Gateway Gallery to tell the story of its SiningSaysay: Philippine History in Art exhibit paintings digitally – through animation, video, narration, sound, and music.

With augmented reality, users can have an interactive experience where objects in a real-world environment are enhanced by digitally-generated perceptual information, sometimes across multiple sensory modalities that include visual, auditory, and haptic. In this case, the real-world environment is the Gateway Gallery exhibition space, and the objects are the SiningSaysay paintings.

The Gateway Gallery Pocket Museum app has made the augmented reality experience more accessible with a playback button. Viewers will learn more about the country’s history through 29 AR videos in 89 minutes, or an average of 3 minutes per video.

Gari Apolonio, the Museum Curator of Gateway Gallery states: “The Augmented Reality Program and the Pocket Museum are products of years of careful study, balanced research, and meticulous development. They are results of a well-intentioned collaboration among talents from the fields of history, film, design, museology, education, and information technology. With these cultural products, we aim to contribute to a more vigorous art appreciation and history education especially among the youth and students.”

The Gateway Gallery Pocket Museum gives museum lovers a portable experience of a physical museum visit. Once downloaded via Google Play or App Store, users can experience SiningSaysay Augmented Reality and explore the museum’s art collections and other attractions within Araneta City. They can also use the Connect Section to schedule guided tours, shop, book an event or exhibit, and even donate to the Gallery.

This gives the public an alternative virtual access to the Gateway Gallery, which now remains closed due to the pandemic.

More users are expected to experience the Gateway Gallery Pocket Museum after a sealed partnership made between the Department of Education (DepEd) and the J. Amado Araneta Foundation (JAAF), which supervises the museum. Under a two-year Memorandum of Agreement signed in the second quarter of 2021, DepEd officially adopts the Pocket Museum as a digital learning platform.

With this agreement, teachers and public school students will start using the app as a supplementary tool in MAPEH and History classes. For its part, JAAF will monitor and provide assistance in the implementation of the partnership.

The dynamic team that made the Pocket Museum and the AR Program possible is composed of like-minded individuals who contributed with zeal to this project. Gari Apolonio, Gateway Gallery’s Curator, led the project as history researcher and writer for the Augmented Reality Videos, and as designer of the Pocket Museum; Jerih Ondante of the Araneta City IT team applied the Pocket Museum’s conceptual design; Prof. Maria Lourdes Camagay of the UP Department of History, and John Ray Ramos of Ateneo de Manila University served as history consultants to ensure that all the presented information is true and accurate.

The Augmented Reality Videos were crafted by director, editor, and animator Bani Logroño, with the project managed by Mai Logroño, and assisted by a team consisting of Assistant Editor and Animators Leslie Dianne Lusanco and Clayton Sambilad, and voice-over narrator Melissa Ferrer.

Supporting the project are the team members from JAAF: Executive Director Christine Diane Romero, who saw the vital importance of the digital projects especially during the pandemic; Deputy Director Glenda Dawn Carlota, Gallery Officer Helen Valenzuela, and Programs Officer May Anne Geronimo who served as video consultants and administrative support.

Promotional efforts have already been committed by Gateway Gallery and JAAF to expand the usage of the Pocket Museum and the AR Program and to reach their goals. Art, technology, and history come together to provide a powerful experience among Filipinos. It is an experience that educates, inspires, and instills timeless values such as leadership, integrity, courage, and justice. As Gari Apolonio says, “It is our timeless Gift to the Filipino youth.”