Art finds a new medium

SAN FRANCISCO — Art lovers, history buffs and science devotees, take note: To get the most out of your next museum visit, make sure you have your cell phone with you.

Not to gab on, of course, but to listen to audio tours that weave music, narration and recordings from historical archives designed to bring more context to the exhibitions. For many visitors, it comes as a welcome alternative to the decades-old system of museums renting out expensive handheld devices.

Museums across the country, once averse to noisy cell phones, are suddenly encouraging their use. In the past year, about a dozen art institutions — including museums in Los Angeles, Berkeley, Calif., Tacoma, Minneapolis and Greenwich, Conn. — have begun offering cell phone tours, mostly for free. Dozens more are in the process of implementing the service.

One reason for the surge is the emergence of companies such as Guide by Cell of San Francisco, Ashburn, Va.-based Spatial Adventures Inc. and Minneapolis-based Museum411, which run computer servers and phone systems so museums don’t have to.

“I generally don’t buy the audio tours when I go to a museum unless it’s a Monet or somebody really impressive,” said Chris Mengarelli, 53, who recently used her phone to tour the exhibit “Visual Politics: The Art of Engagement,” at the San Jose Museum of Art.

“It was much more convenient than having to rent a head set and worrying about what kind of germs are being transmitted.”

Museums have been making audio tours available over cell phones since at least 2002, when Southern Utah University opened an exhibit of historical photos documenting 100 years of local theater. Matt Nickerson, a professor of library science, wrote the script and taped old actors recalling their performances in Shakespearean plays. He recruited an actor and engineer to record and mix the audio tour at a radio station.

“It turned out to be much simpler than I thought,” he said.

Using the museum services is as easy as dialing a number and selecting the code that corresponds to the artwork a visitor is viewing. While each museum’s system is different, visitors generally can stay on the same call throughout the tour and switch from one exhibit to the next by entering different numbers into their phones, similar to the way callers navigate a voice mail system.

At least one tour, offered at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, responded to voice commands, but museum officials there discontinued the feature because chatter and ambient noise often interfered.

Companies such as Spatial Adventures plan to offer text, pictures and video in the next year or so to take advantage of new capabilities being offered by cell phone carriers.

For now, most museums offer cell phone audio for free, although users must deduct the time spent listening from their monthly allotment of minutes. They also must pay any roaming charges or other costs that may apply to their cell phone plan. Those costs differ widely depending on the carrier.

Many museums are able to give away the service because companies such as Guide by Cell, living off investor financing, offer free pilots of the service as they try to jump-start the trend. About half of Guide by Cell’s customers are paying for the service, while all of Museum411’s clients pay.

“When we have to pay, or someone has to pay, we may have to change things,” said Suzanne Isken, director of education at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, which started using Guide by Cell audio for one of its exhibits in January.

The chief benefit of cell phones is their ubiquity. With almost 204 million Americans carrying a cell phone, according to wireless industry group CTIA, museums no longer have to maintain fleets of handheld devices.