Photo by Barak Shrama

Gaming the Museum: The Power of Open-Source Innovation in Cultural Spaces (Online)

8 museums from the US and Switzerland, 20 prototypes, 24 months: discover how museums are being reimagined through open-source game design in this online event.

Join us

On June 17, 2025, discover how museums are being reimagined through open-source game design. In this live Zoom event, Swiss and U.S. collaborators behind Project AMI (Art + Museums Interacting) unpack how rapid prototyping and cross-border co-creation are turning visitors into active explorers—and transforming how institutions innovate.

Museum educators, interaction designers, and game-studio partners from Switzerland and the United States share insights from developing 20 open-source game prototypes through Project AMI (Art + Museums Interacting). Built in swift 30-day sprints and refined through public play-tests, the examples show how gamified experiences transform visitors from passive observers into curious explorers – while offering a process any institution can adopt.

Speakers outline the concrete advantages of exchanging assets, methodologies, and documentation, pooling resources across borders, and nurturing a growing international learning community. They also explore how open-source practices spark entrepreneurial energy, enabling studios to co-create with museums and keep iterating long after a project’s debut.

A spotlight on Grabbit showcases how ideas flourish across institutions: originally developed by Museum Rietberg, it was later adapted with custom content for SFMOMA – illustrating how ideas travel when tools remain open.

 

Moderated by journalist Muriel Siki, this one-hour Zoom conversation streams June 17, 2025 at 17:00 CET / 08:00 PST, followed by live Q&A and an on-demand replay on the ArtTech YouTube channel.

Event Time

8am Pacific Standard Time (San Francisco)
5pm CET (Switzerland)

Format: Zoom Event (registered event attendees will receive a link to the Zoom event)

About the ArtTech Foundation
Founded in Switzerland in 2017, the ArtTech Foundation brings together culture, research, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Its mission is to promote and support the cultural and creative industries by leveraging new technologies. With a network of over 2,600 members, including researchers, artists, investors, and entrepreneurs, the Foundation encourages dialogue and collaboration at the intersection of creativity and technology. It supports a wide range of initiatives across sectors such as heritage, audiovisual media, music, interactive content, and the art market, both nationally and internationally. Among its key activities is the ArtTech Prize, an annual international competition aimed at supporting innovative entrepreneurial projects that connect arts, culture, and technology.

About Project AMI (Art + Museums Interacting)
Project AMI is a growing community of museum professionals reimagining visitor engagement through experimentation. Launched by the Max Kohler Foundation in Zurich, AMI brought together eight museums from Switzerland and the U.S. to develop and test 20 interactive, open-source prototypes with the help of Boston-based game design studio FableVision. Guided by five core principles—audience-focused, shifting mindsets, radical sharing, community of action, and playfulness—AMI invites other museums to join the movement by exploring the prototypes or connecting through events and updates at www.projectami.ch.

Program (times in PST)

  • 8:00am – Event starts with a conversation, followed by a Q&A session and an on-demand replay on the ArtTech YouTube channel.
  • 9:00am – Event ends

Event start time

Speakers

Partners

This event is a collaboration with the ArtTech Foundation, the Max Kohler Foundation, and Project AMI (Art + Museums Interacting