Kurios
Spring 2020 – Matthew Mosher
Kurios is a smartphone web application for saving and sharing audio stories embedded in physical objects. We envision two principle groups of users: families at home, and preservation professionals. Members of the general public can use Kurios to attach audio reflections to family photos, heirlooms, souvenirs, and ephemera. Historians and museum curators can utilize Kurios to affix the memories of a donor or artist to an artifact, in turn creating a bring-your-own device audio guide. This is accomplished by placing a Kurios QR code label on the object. Users, with an Android or iOS device, internet connection, and a tagged object can scan the tag and experience a story. A secondary feature is the ability of an artifact’s owner to permit others to record stories on their object, which further enhances the family or community narrative by showing multiple stories from multiple perspectives over time. Kurios was born from Matthew Mosher’s Fulbright research in Austria, and then expanded into an interdisciplinary collaboration with Lori Walters and Yovanna Pineda as part of the UCF GAIM Strategic Plan Innovation Award. Special thanks to UCF graduate Student Cameron Tolentino for his work in web design.