ARTEXPLORE R E ME A
THE MEDITERRANEAN
A fir s t-of - i t s - k i n d m u s e u m boa t se ts s a il w ith t h e a i m o f m a k i n g art and cul tur e a c c e s s i b l e t o t h e wide st p os s ibl e a u d i e n c e w i t h mobility a nd f o r w a r d - t h i n k i n g d ig ital tec h n o l o g y a t i t s h e art. P h oto b y Eli s a v on Broc k dorff
ARTEXPLORER is the world’s first museum boat and boasts a stateof-the-art audiovisual system thanks to the work of AV-IT systems integrator Akumendo and ArScénique, a solutions and services provider for events and digital systems. The star attraction of the yacht is the immersive LED tunnel, which utilises LED technology from Leyard Europe, a Modulo Kinetic media server solution from Modulo Pi, a cluster of Genelec smart-IP loudspeakers, while the whole boat features an overarching Crestron control system. Created by French entrepreneur and philanthropist Frédéric Jousset, the Art Explora Foundation had previously undertaken mobile museum installations on trucks to drive around the roads of France and England. The foundation’s latest project is the travelling Art Explora Festival and its 46m catamaran, ARTEXPLORER. Designed to provide free access to unique cultural and artistic experiences, the festival will take place onboard the boat, as well as on the docks of the host cities. From spring 2024 to autumn 2026, the Art Explora Festival and its museum boat plan to visit 15 countries across the Mediterranean Sea. The visitor experience on board unfolds in three stages, first entering the ARTEXPLORER’s upper deck, where they are equipped with RSF Confident headphones with binaural audio. For around 10 minutes, visitors experience a sound odyssey from the Mediterranean Sea designed by Ircam, the French institute for musical and acoustic research and coordination. The tour continues on the aft deck, where a documentary is shown on a 3m by 2m LED wall. Finally, guests enter the heart of the main deck and accesses the immersive LED tunnel gallery. Here, they experience the digital exhibition ‘Présentes’, created from the Louvre and Art Explora brief by Julien Abril, founder of Graphics eMotion, with the overall digital museum project managed by Philippe Rivière, head of digital at Art Explora foundation. Initiated four years ago, ARTEXPLORER was designed by architects Axel de Beaufort and Guillaume Verdier, and the catamaran and its imposing 55m sails were built at the Perini Navi shipyard in Italy. Akumendo, specialists in IT integration on board yachts, and Arscénique, joined forces to develop a joint response to an unprecedented set of specifications. One of the main challenges of the
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