Project Overview

Plaster ReCast is a mixed reality mobile app designed to enhance visitor experience to plaster cast collections. The app was developed in partnership with the Carnegie Museum of Art and the Carnegie Mellon Entertainment Technology Center and uses positional tracking to provide context aware information layered over a live camera view. The layered media content includes 3D cast scans, CAD models of the original buildings, and archival documents. 

Until the turn of the twentieth century, public and private art museums, especially in the United States, acquired large collections of plaster casts to present visitors with physical, three-dimensional reproductions of portions of buildings and sculpture. These pieces represent disparate geographic locations and historical time periods, often recreating a sense of the “grand tour” for those unable to travel. During 2017 Plaster ReCast was playtested by museum visitors at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum of Art, which boasts the world’s third largest architectural cast collection. The ambition of the app is to weave a compelling narrative between embodied experience the wealth of backstory not currently accessible when experiencing casts firsthand.

Project Credits

In Collaboration with >> Francesca Torello, CMU School of Architecture
Support from >> Carnegie Museum of Art Heinz Architectural Center, CMU Entertainment Technology Center, Ferguson Jacobs Prize  
Video by >> Make.Media