Chip Chick
Samsung’s SMART TVs and smartphones might be all the rage nowadays, but the company is about to head into a new frontier of SMART devices, and these are the first of their kind. Samsung’s upcoming SM’ART Gallery Panels are essentially digital canvases that are designed to display fine art. The panels themselves are high resolution LCD panels that have been created to accommodate works of art.
Samsung has teamed up with Planar to develop this new display technology which they have actually been working on, for as far back as five years. The two display manufacturers have been working together to develop panels that are much higher in resolution than your standard television display, and that are able to reproduce the artists original colors and vision – down to even the texture of the display. We got a hands-on with two of the prototype models and the visuals on these SM’ART Gallery Panels are colorful and sharp. The prototypes include a 21.9″ x 33.9″ tall display with a 1:1.5 aspect ratio, and a 48″ x 27″ display with a 16:9 aspect ratio. The displays will not only be cutting edge, but they will also be green devices that are able to turn on and off by themselves, and they will come with built in motion and proximity sensors, along with ambient light sensors.
Samsung has big plans for these new panels and believes that a whole new category of products will be developed from them. To that effect, they are already working with artists and licensing companies with the ultimate goal of creating a cloud-based service where buyers can easily browse and purchase fine art, right from their SM’ART panels
Ultimately, Samsung believes that SM’ART Gallery Panels can also offer more exposure for fine artists and their art, and they believe that the panels also have the potential to create a whole new wave of digital artists that are designing for this new medium – or as Samsung likes to call them – SM’ARTISTS.
So far Samsung says that the artists they have approached have been very receptive to this technology because the displays are able to capture and recreate the artist’s vision so well. Samsung expects to bring the first Samsung SM’ART Gallery Panels to market this coming Spring or Summer. They wouldn’t go into details about pricing, but you can expect the first generation of SM’ART Gallery Panels to be expensive, and they are guaranteed to cost a lot more than your average LCD television.
In the future will fine art galleries use Samsung SM’ART Gallery Panels instead of canvas? We think that this is very likely the case. After all, it’s a natural evolution that was bound to happen sooner or later.
