Bob Dylan Center

A Heads-Up Immersive Audio Experience.

Bob Dylan center this is a heads-up audio experience custom built to house Bob Dylan's personal archives. The site is located within the neighborhood of Greenwood, which is quickly becoming the art center of Tulsa, Oklahoma. It is also important as the location of the 1921 massacre of Black Wall Street. A wave of racial violence which destroyed an affluent African-American community.

As a creative technologist at Art Processors, I was responsible for overseeing the installation of Bluetooth location-aware technology.

I worked closely with our Melbourne, Australia based team to create an install plan, write code for integrating multiple technologies, and to coordinate with other vendors on-site. These include the architect, the AV integrator, fabricators, and the exhibit designers, 59 Productions. 59 Productions, a London based exhibit and live performance design firm.

Our goal on location was to configure the Bluetooth beacons installed throughout the space, to set up servers, a network time server, and deploy a fleet of 100 iPods used as listening devices within the space.

Bluetooth beacons allowed for determining a visitors location through triangulation. The system has the ability to track the precise location of a visitor within the gallery spaces.

There are also numerous Bluetooth touch points located near video screens and other interactives.

Visitors can touch the iPod device and receive the audio portion of the experience. This creates an entirely heads-up experience. Visitors are encouraged to browse freely and enjoy the collection without the need to stop and read placards along the way.

Bob Dylan’s collection is, of course, centered on his music. Because of the sheer amount of audio content, placing speakers would have been impractical.They would be constantly competing with each other.

Location aware devices let people choose their own path through the fully immersive sound experience.