On establishing contact with cultural objects: The role of a location based game in supporting visitors to engage with contemporary art

In this paper we discuss the difficulty of museum visitors to engage and relate with cultural objects focusing mainly on pieces of contemporary art. We present Taggling a location based game designed to support learning in the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art. The results of a qualitative user study with volunteers helped us to outline the learning potential of the game and supported us to gain an insight on the integration of the game in the educational activities of the museum. Furthermore, our data analysis showed that the game experience revolves around revisiting the same artwork and viewing it with the help of curatorial information constructed in the form of tags, casting visitors in an active role and helping them to engage with the exhibits.