PROTOTYPE
WALKING CINEMA: MUSEUM OF THE HIDDEN CITY is an interactive documentary about the history of affordable housing set in the real world streets of San Francisco. Formatted as a smartphone-guided walking tour, the project uses GPS, immersive audio, and on-site installations to make audiences feel like they are exploring a highly interactive exhibit in a museum without walls.
DOWNLOAD THE APP
As part of the Digital Projects for the Public grant we received from the National Endowment for the Humanities, we created a smartphone app and walking content in the Fillmore. The Museum is experienced with an audio and augmented reality app you download to your smartphone. It will guide you through the museum and open up a hidden world of housing history all around you.
Use the links below to get the free app then grab some headphones, check the recommended hours, and head to the starting point at St. Mary’s Cathedral in the Fillmore neighborhood.
USER TESTING
AUGMENTED REALITY TESTING
Augmented Reality is a core component of the walking experience of MUSEUM OF THE HIDDEN CITY. This technology overlays images, animation, and video on top of your smartphone's camera. In June 2018, Walking Cinema was invited to showcase the augmented reality component of the project at the Gray Area Arts Showcase in San Francisco. The images and video below show how the team re-created a portion of the 1940 exhibit "A Space for Living" created by Telesis. This highly-influential exhibit at the San Francisco Art Museum called into question the state of San Francisco housing and advocated modern planning and architecture to improve the core components of urban life: services, play, work, and housing. The augmented reality overlays show how this exhibit had an enormous impact and unintended consequences in the Fillmore neighborhood. In the walking portion, a scaled down version of this exhibit will be a stop on the route.
FUNDING PROVIDED BY THE FOLLOWING ORGANIZATIONS
