01
Blind and low vision Philadelphians
The city's public art on your own terms, described the moment you stand in front of it. No help required, no one to ask.
A public utility for the beauty around us.
Art belongs to everyone. We're making it accessible. Gestalt is an Accessibility Platform that takes an innovative approach to extending culture and fine art to all.
Explore your city. Gestalt will let you know when you're near participating artwork, so you can hear a visually rich description.
Access is not generosity. It is the removal of a barrier that should not have existed.
We, as a society, have work to do.
The modern world fails so many. With all of the convenience, access, and opportunity, there has been little progress in digital accessibility.
Even less in exploring how technological advances could work in concert with the analog world, as it stands.
Gestalt is a long-term project from Omi Labs (Oro, Omi) focused on developing new products and services in this space.
Gestalt is for
02
Neighbors who don't read English
The same wall, explained in a language you actually read, so the city's walls speak to the whole city, not part of it.
03
The city and its institutions
A live, honest picture of what's described and what isn't. The ADA accountability a public collection owes, ready the morning of the meeting.
04
Artists and Mural Arts partners
Every description carries the artist's name and points people back to the work. The wall stays the artist's; Gestalt makes sure more of the city arrives at it.
What a visitor hears.
Persistence, a mural by Jason Andrew Turner: a towering blue wall, a figure in a red dress scattered with white dots. A generic caption would stop at blue wall. Press play and hear what a describer wrote for the person standing in front of it. No front desk, no borrowed device.
Persistence
Jason Andrew Turner, Contemporary
“You’re standing before a towering blue wall that pulses with electric intensity against the sky.”
Context by Gestalt, reviewed by a human describer
Gestalt Nearby
Take the Philadelphia mural tour.
Stand in front of any wall in the city and hear what it holds. Gestalt Nearby finds the murals around you and describes each one out loud, right where you're standing — the whole city, one wall at a time.
Free Always, for everyone on the street. No account, nothing to install.
Free to use, no account needed. Bring headphones and good walking shoes.
For institutions
The same work, on the record.
Museums face the same backlog, at collection scale. Gestalt helps them generate, review, and deliver accessible experiences in days rather than years, and keeps a live view of how far along they are.
- 2–3%
- of museum collections have audio descriptions
- $50–150
- cost per description when written by hand
