“Sensing Art – Capolavori oltre lo sguardo”: Meta’s AI glasses – a wonderful gift from Brera

Last February, Mark Zuckerberg visited the Pinacoteca di Brera with his wife Priscilla, bringing with him a pair of his smart glasses – the Meta AI Glasses, developed in collaboration with EssilorLuxottica – as a gift. Although he was a guest of Prada at the time – specifically of Lorenzo Bertelli, beside whom he sat at the fashion show, and on that occasion both stated their intention to explore possible areas of collaboration in their respective sectors – it so happened that the director of the Grande Brera, Angelo Crespi, was the first to cross the innovation finish line, and from today, people with low vision and the blind have access to ten pairs of Ray-Ban Meta glasses which, available via online booking (though the number will increase shortly), allow them to view eight masterpieces from the collection with almost complete independence: through three different sets of content for each work, developed and integrated with the decade-old method, ‘DescriVedendo’ – a method developed at Brera in collaboration with the National Association for the Visually Impaired – artificial intelligence guides visitors through the galleries, alerts them to other visitors nearby, and describes the painting with morphological precision whilst, above all, paying attention to the context, the narrative and the evocative qualities that stimulate the senses, the imagination and personal perception of a work of art – which are, after all, the very reasons why we wish to see the Mona Lisa at the Louvre or The Marriage of the Virgin at Brera, without being satisfied even by the most perfect photographic reproduction. The fact that the museum experience cannot be considered exclusively visual is the rationale and the initial concept behind this project, aptly named ‘Sensing Art’; the first of its kind in the world, so much so that it has rightly aroused the interest of many other similar institutions, which recognise that accessibility cannot be considered solely in terms of mobility; it was developed in collaboration with the National Association for the Visually Impaired, the Italian Union of the Blind and Partially Sighted, and the Milan Institute for the Blind Foundation, precisely with the aim of exploring new ways of experiencing culture for those who face the challenges of low vision – a particularly relevant issue in Italy, where cultural heritage plays a central role and where moderate or severe visual impairments affect a total of 18.6 per cent of the population, amounting to nearly 2.2 billion people worldwide. It is no coincidence that Maxine Williams, head of Meta’s Accessibility and Engagement division, emphasises that “people with disabilities use artificial intelligence far more than those who do not face the same limitations” and that, whilst such tools are obviously “not a cure-all – technology merely opens doors” – they are anything but “a gadget; they are independence”. Within ten minutes of the announcement, the web was already teeming with detractors who, in their typical confused manner, were railing against the intrusiveness of Big Brother. Fortunately, those who will benefit from this service will have no way of reading their comments. For anyone who has experienced the familiar pain of blindness and the—in this case, physical and painful—loss of being able to share artistic enjoyment with loved ones, a couple of tears of emotion even welled up.