UNM Historian Helps Develop App on Murals in San Francisco

Jason Scott Smith, Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico asso­ciate pro­fes­sor of his­tory, has been work­ing with a team of schol­ars to develop a mobile app, “Let’s Get Lost: New Deal Murals of San Fran­cisco.” “The app is now out of beta test­ing and is avail­able for iPhone, iPad and Android devices.

Smith said, “The first ‘tour’ brings to life the his­tory and mean­ing of the city’s most intrigu­ing murals from the Depres­sion era with archival film footage, pho­tographs, inter­views with the artists, music, fun chal­lenges and more.”

Fea­tures include:
• An in-depth look at Coit Tower, Rin­con Annex and the Pan Amer­i­can Unity mural at City Col­lege of San Fran­cisco
• Inter­ac­tive hunts, using a cam­era phone, that chal­lenge indi­vid­u­als to find hid­den mean­ings and cen­sored images in the murals
• Videos with his­tor­i­cal back­ground as well as videos specif­i­cally focused on the three fea­tured sites
• “Guided Look­ing” audio with nar­ra­tion, expert com­men­tary, inter­views, music and sound effects that offer insights into and mean­ing behind spe­cific images
• Slideshows about the mural­ists, orig­i­nal artist’s sketches that were pre­vi­ously cen­sored and news­pa­per arti­cles from the period

Instruc­tions to down­load the app are at: Let’s Get Lost.

“Indi­vid­u­als should be able to nav­i­gate the app with­out dif­fi­culty,” he said, adding that apps such like this that make use of cutting-edge tech­nol­ogy, require mon­i­tor­ing and eval­u­at­ing on its usabil­ity. The team team will con­tinue to mon­i­tor and eval­u­ate its usabil­ity in the weeks to come.

“The app is meant to be used on site at the murals, so that users will be look­ing at the murals as they hear audio selec­tions and that visual media, such as videos, slideshows and stills, sup­ple­ment rather than replace the expe­ri­ence of view­ing the murals first­hand,” he said, adding, “It has been incred­i­bly reward­ing and intel­lec­tu­ally enrich­ing to work on a project with such a tal­ented group of colleagues.”

The team includes design­ers and researchers from Ari­zona State Uni­ver­sity, Mount Holyoke, Uni­ver­sity of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley and San Fran­cisco State.

Media Con­tact: Car­olyn Gon­za­les (505) 277‑5920; email: cgonzal@unm.edu