GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — They say art is in the eye of the beholder.
And with nearly 1,000 artists across 42 venues, ArtPrizecan sometimes be overwhelming.
But a new app hopes to cater the festival to your own interests.
“Instead of just heading over to, you know, Amway or Devos Place, just because that's the biggest venue, you might be able to find a diamond in the rough that would be suited to your taste, just on the other side of town,” World Out Influence Owner Anne DeVitto said.
It’s called FlockX and it uses artificial intelligence to get to know a visitor's true interests.
“Because you're interacting and asking questions and telling the sidekick about yourself, it's going to be able to say, ‘Hey, I think, I think you might love this and create suggestions,'" DeVitto said.
The result? The AI sidekick will start to include suggestions and descriptions of venues and activities that might interest you best at ArtPrize, creating a whole new experience for visitors.
The app is not just focused on the exhibits, but the entire experience, hoping to keep folks in town for more than just a few hours.
“We scour the internet for these signals so we know where the live music is, or what and what genre that live music is, whether there's a big Dart tournament going on, to be able to navigate you to those things as we start to learn more about you,” FlockX CTO Mark Losey said.
The partnership hopes to generate buzz around the city, long after an ArtPrize winner is announced.
It's also the app you use to vote.
So how does it work? You’ll first download the app FlockX. Right away you will see the headline “Flocks’ on the app.
You can click on that Flock and it will have all sorts of different tabs including venues, artists, voting activities and more. You will also see a “learn more with the sidekick” icon.
That’s where AI comes in. You can ask the sidekick questions about artists, restaurants, and events— starting a conversation to curate ideas of where to go, what art you might like to see, and where to go after you're done exploring ArtPrize.
A QR code will take you to the app at each exhibit for voting.
You can vote for as many pieces as you want— you can even vote on an exhibit every day of the festival without retracing your steps. You just have to be in front of it for the first vote.
You can learn more and download FlockX here.
