Pixelstix brings art gallery experience to the streets of St Petersburg, FL creating world’s first mural network

SHINE Mural Festival uses technology to give art lovers access to 70+ interactive pieces

St. Petersburg, FL Oct 8th 2019 

Pixelstix announces its mural network at SHINE Mural Festival, being showcased on over 70 murals throughout St. Petersburg, FL. Using a smart-phone with the Pixelstix app, visitors to a mural can scan a Pixelstix plaque which will load docent-level information about the mural and the artist onto their device. Additionally, interactive maps show the locations of the festival’s collection of murals, creating a personalized mural tour. 

“Pixelstix has allowed our curated murals to become an interactive urban gallery, creating a museum quality experience without walls or admission costs to the visitors” says John Collins, Executive Director, St. Petersburg Arts Alliance. 

Collections of murals and street art in cities around the world face the challenges of offering gallery maps, self-guided tours, and financial support. Pixelstix maps provides users a view of all plaqued murals in the City, or a subset showing a particular artist. Users can create their own custom maps of murals they like and share maps with others. Art galleries and museums often provide guided tours from subject matter experts. Pixelstix brings this experience to street art, providing the artist themself a direct line of communication to the visitor in front of the mural. This allows the visitor to have an on-demand docent level experience at their convenience both schedule wise and duration.  

“Pixelstix plaques give people the ability to digitally locate and learn about the murals via their smartphone.  The data from these mural scans allows SHINE to receive direct feedback about which murals are seen and when. All of this comes together collectively to create a network unlike anything we’ve seen in curated mural collections before including those as large as Berlin and London,” says Matthew Walker, CEO/Founder of Pixelstix. 

The financial aspect of public art has always been a challenge. Quantifying visits, via scans, by time-of-day, total visits, and visitor patterns between murals quickly reveals hotspots within a city. Foot traffic is key to many businesses in St Petersburg. An artist can convey not only the beauty of their mural, but also provide data showing how and when their art brings people to their murals. Additionally, there is potential for placing digital donation stations within hotspot areas to financially support SHINE and the artists themselves. 

SHINE Mural Festival is Oct 18th thru Oct 26, in St. Petersburg, FL. 

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About Pixelstix

Founded in 2017, Pixelstix is a startup creating personalized web based experiences for public and private art, and B2B technology offerings. Based in St. Petersburg, FL, we are a team of art loving technologists with a passion for innovation. Pixelstix holds patent-pending technologies in over 25 different areas.

About SHINE St. Petersburg Mural Festival

Led by local artists and community members, SHINE is a St Petersburg Arts Alliance project intended to illuminate the power of art in public spaces by revitalizing areas, inspiring dialogue, and uniting communities—all while cultivating new standards of artistic excellence and reflecting St. Petersburg’s creative spirit.