About Ariel

Ariel Schwartz is a media veteran with decades of experience helping institutions and corporate clients achieve award-winning results through the use of the appropriate content and techniques to create effective, engaging and memorable experiences. He especially loves large-scale, complex projects that push creative and technical envelopes.

Ariel specializes in:

·      Creating interactive applications, including touchscreen experiences, immersive environments, interactive theaters, mobile apps and websites.

·      Video production from online to location-based to television. This includes scripting, producing, shooting/editing, production management, encoding.

·      Virtual reality applications, whether delivered as headset-based, augmented reality or projected environments.

 Ariel currently co-teaches a Virtual Reality Lab course at the University of Pennsylvania, and a Museum Design Course at Drexel University, both in Philadelphia.

MUSEUMS

Among Ariel’s projects have been:

·      Philadelphia Museum of Art in Philadelphia, PA:

•     A is for Art Museum. A treasure hunt app for families and children which guides them through the museum via indoor wayfinding. Won the AAM Award for Best Museum Educational App of the Year.

•     Mexican Modernism Exhibition. Attracted over 400K visitors. Recreated several Rivera, Orozco and Siqueiros murals by conducting high-resolution photo and video shoots in Mexico City and projecting them life-size in the galleries. Also created an 84-inch touchtable and iPad interactives for the exhibition. The Wall Street Journal called these mural interactives “…an excellent use of technology in an art museum.”

•     Chinese Temple Ceiling. Innovative Augmented Reality (AR) app uses untethered iPads, which visitors hold over their heads to virtually see details of the wooden ceiling 20 feet above.

•     Period Room Interactives using 180-degree photo stitches. Objects slide out of cabinets and visitors can turn them 360 degrees.

•     Rose Garden of Love video. Created in collaboration with celebrated contemporary visual artist Shahzia Sikander and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Du Yun, this animated video has become an acquired work in the permanent collection of South Asian Art at the museum.

·      National Geographic Society’s Headquarters Museum in Washington, DC: creation of an automated 72-seat interactive theater.

·      US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC: creation of an interactive Learning Center with 2,000 articles on the Holocaust tied to thousands of survivor videos, 40,000 photos from the archives, music of the Holocaust, maps and much more.

·      Getty Museum in Los Angeles, CA: creation of a gallery interactive system where visitors learn more about the objects and explore themes and artists.

·      IBM THINK Gallery of Science in New York, NY: creation of 22 interactive stations featuring basic science discoveries of IBM Watson Research Center scientists.

TELEVISION

In addition to museums, Ariel is also a television producer. He co-created and was the Line Producer for the very popular PBS geography gameshow, “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?” Carmen won 10 Emmy Awards and a Peabody Award for Educational Excellence.

More recently, Ariel was an Executive Producer for a PBS cooking show, “A Taste of History.” ToH combines Revolutionary-era history with open-hearth cooking, and is hosted by Chef Walter Staib. The show has won over 15 Emmy Awards. Ariel was responsible for developing, writing and producing the historical segments on the series. Ariel has also worked at NBC, CBS Cable and HBO.

CORPORATE & NON-PROFITS

Ariel has developed projects for corporate and non-profit clients including GM, AT&T, Disney’s EPCOT, Citibank, the Gates Foundation and universities.

He is motivated by developing “out of the box” solutions to client challenges, and creating projects that help to teach and elevate.

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