Maybe one day you can sit at home, use your mobile phone, and then be transferred to an immersive art installation.
If the project of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) goes well, you will soon be able to send an emoji message to major museums around the world, and then get a piece of art as a reply.
At present, this museum is cooperating with more than six institutions around the world to expand the activity called "Send Me SFMOMA" (Send Me San Francisco Museum of Modern Art). When this collection sharing activity was launched this summer, it quickly became popular online. The museums participating in this project include the Tate Museum in London, the High Museum in Atlanta, and the Auckland Art Gallery and Christchurch Art Gallery in New Zealand. They are all combining this format with their own collections. The San Francisco Art Museum has also contacted museums in Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore.
The original idea of this project is very simple: as long as you are in the United States, simply describe what you want to see, and send a message to 572-51, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art will select a corresponding work from its collection. Send back to the sender of the message. The message sent can be expressed by emoji, keywords or colors. For example, I sent a fried egg emoji to the museum and received a photo of the artist Rirkrit Tiravanjia making Thai pho.
The project was a huge success because the museum received 2 million text messages within a week. After actor Neil Patrick Harris introduced the project on Twitter, various inquiries flooded to SFMOMA's servers.

A text message sent from Send Me at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA).

It turns out that this event is not only popular among audiences, but also among museums. "We have received inquiries from people all over the world," Keir Winesmith, SFMOMA's director of network and digital platforms, told artnet News. However, the museum did not choose to copy this product into a universal version, but decided to set the basic code as a public resource, so that museums around the world could combine this code with their own collections. "We think this is more meaningful than simply promoting our collection." Winesmith said.

If other museums want to add the "Send Me" system to their collections, they first need to have a fully digital collection, and then have a set of "Application Programming Interface" (Application Programming Interface) that allows users to inquire and obtain information through a central database.

Secondly, the museum itself has to decide what is the most convenient mode of communication for their audience. For example, in New Zealand, the software system does not make it easy to send pictures via SMS, so the museum has to find a way to change the SMS to Facebook Messenger. And Chinese museums need to "Send Me" on WeChat.

A text message sent from Send Me at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA).

In recent weeks, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is conducting free seminar training for interested museums. "We are not expecting anything in return," Winesmith said. "We believe this is the basis for promoting social and cultural equality."

This process has embodied the shocking cultural differences. Winesmith mentioned that collections in New Zealand are usually associated with a specific place, so compared to SFMOMA, the museums there are more inclined to label their collections and corresponding locations.

However, some things are universal. "Eggplant emojis mean the same everywhere." Winesmith said.
(Image and text source: artnet)