Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe
Ping! Your Date with Democracy
From an early object chat in the museum to today’s browser-based city tour, Ping! shows how a long-term partnership can keep evolving a format over the years.
Karlsruhe was a key moment for Mein Objekt: one of the first major live deployments was created here, with many chats for museum objects. That work later evolved into today’s PING! web app, which expands the format with a browser-based city tour through Karlsruhe.
What makes this project special
- Long-term partnership: from an early Mein Objekt deployment to the browser-based PING! upgrade in 2025.
- The foundation of the project is more than 150 chats with museum exhibits, a large body of content that has grown over many years.
- The current version expands the object perspective to include places, buildings, and historical sites across the city.
- The new format guides people through Karlsruhe with an interactive map, swipe mechanics, QR entry points, and chats directly in the browser.
- This makes PING! work in the city center, in the museum, in class, and from home.
- Supporting material for teachers makes the current city-space version especially strong for history, civics, and democracy education.
Voice from the museum
A project that grew with the institution
“With Mein Objekt // Ping!, the Badisches Landesmuseum has taken a major leap into the digital future. The process was great fun for our staff and the participating citizens, and the result is fantastic. The dialogues with the exhibits are sometimes very funny, sometimes very moving, but always entertaining and engaging.”
Partnership
Karlsruhe is one of the earliest and at the same time one of the longest-running collaborations of Mein Objekt.
Interpretation
According to the museum, the dialogues are sometimes funny, sometimes moving, but always entertaining and engaging.
Participation
Both staff members and participating citizens were actively involved in the process.