ArtStory Beats: Highlighting Interactions between Visual Arts and Music with Storytelling

Abstract

In this article, we present the use-case of ArtStory Beats, a mobile application that aims to reflect the creative dialogue between visual arts and music, offering stories about the vibrant interactions that take place within the artistic communities over time. The app use is quite simple: It scans physical copies of visual artworks and provides audio-enhanced stories. However, the audio is not intended to be background or supplementary informative material. It is a music song that somehow relates to the visual artwork, and the stories tell you how. First, we describe our content creation process along with the design of the mobile application. Then we present the results from a qualitative user study with 15 participants, investigating the role and effects of music over several dimensions: overall experience, user satisfaction, and most notably, cultural engagement. The outcomes of the study reveal the potential of the approach to foster curiosity, capture the user's attention, and support a deeper, reflective connection of the user with the combined artworks. Finally, we discuss the potential use of ArtStory Beats in different contexts, as a remote but also onsite experience, elaborating on related challenges and future directions.