The John Hansard Gallery is a leading public art gallery and part of the University of Southampton. It recently moved into Studio 144, a purpose-built arts complex in the city centre that also houses theatre company NST and City Eye, which supports film culture in the region. The gallery hosts major exhibitions, opening with a retrospective by German artist Gerhard Richter, as well as free tours, educational events and community engagement programmes.s
Digital Signage
The John Hansard Gallery is a leading public art gallery and part of the University of Southampton. It recently moved into Studio 144, a purpose-built arts complex in the city centre that also houses theatre company NST and City Eye, which supports film culture in the region. The gallery hosts major exhibitions, opening with a retrospective by German artist Gerhard Richter, as well as free tours, educational events and community engagement programmes.
The creation of a new home for the John Hansard Gallery had been in the planning for some time, however the turnaround time between moving into the new site and the high-profile opening event was only a matter of weeks. It was at this point that StriveAV were called in to bring the foyer, where the event was to be hosted, to life while providing visitors with information and wayfinding to make their visit more enjoyable. As the requirement was for as close to seamless a videowall as possible, four portrait format 55” LG videowall screens were
specified and installed along with a Onelan digital signage player.
With a fixed deadline of the 12 May to work to, StriveAV had just a week to specify and install a videowall in the gallery foyer. The wall was intended to be used for information, graphics and signage, welcoming and guiding visitors around the space and offering details of upcoming events.
Woodrow Kernohan, Director, John Hansard Gallery, University of Southampton, UK, explains: “The videowall is a great way of drawing audiences and the public into the building; it can offer information 24 hours, so at night we can inform people when we’re open tomorrow, for example.”
However, the full potential of the videowall is only just beginning to be realised.
He continues: “We recently held a launch for a partner organisation who used it to screen a promotional video, so it has many possibilities for us both with information display but also as another way of displaying digital artworks within the gallery.”
In fact, some artists have been so excited about the opportunities opened up by the videowall that StriveAV will be returning to the gallery later in the year to install a larger display for showcasing artwork.
“The quality of the videowall leads to quite incredible possibilities for the artists to work with,” adds Kernohan.
The team at John Hansard also see the potential of the wall when it comes to engaging the community and attracting visitors, and after undertaking Onelan training they are now able to operate and update the screens as needed.
“Everyone has a creative background in our communications team so they’re excited about the huge potential to engage the public in a new way,” concludes Kernohan.
PROJECT CHALLENGES
Without a doubt, the biggest challenge with this project was the extremely tight turnaround time. StriveAV were able to produce a spec and all the proposed layout and installation options and have a working installation in place within a week, something Kernohan describes as “quite extraordinary”. This was despite the fact that there was an issue with some of the hardware which also had to be resolved.
Installed
- 4X 55” LG LV35A LED DISPLAYS
- 4X PEERLESS VIDEO WALL MOUNTS
- ONELAN NTB-4K-1000-SA R3 STANDALONE PLAYER
- DATAPATH FX4 WALL CONTROLLER
- ONELAN TRAINING AND REMOTE SUPPORT.
Case Study
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