by Soudabah Moayedi
8/6/2021
Do you ever wonder what those blue plaques on some of your favorite murals are? We sat down with owner and creator Matthew to learn how he is blending art and his technology to give artists the upper hand in showing the city just how important they are to the St. Pete community. Who knew that data and science could look so cool.
Matthew the CEO of Pixelstix knew his technology could be used to help the artists of the city. Born from a desire to show his family photos from a father and daughter trip, Pixelstix has turned into a powerful tool for our artists. It's super easy to do too! All you need to do is download the app and then touch the blue plaque on any mural that has one. This brings up all the cool behind the scenes stuff about each mural. The app even has a map that can help you find some of the harder to find murals in the area. We used it last year to find Osiris Rain's last mural in our city before he went home.
Pixelstix has given the artist in our community the power to show how much traffic their murals receive. This has been a great tool to show the city how important our artists are to the economy of the St. Pete and its surrounding areas. Matthew is hoping that this technology over time will allow more funding to be given to the artists to continue to create in our city. He knows if we lose our artists we lose the glue that has helped create the unique vibe that is St. Petersburg, Florida and we don't want that to happen.
So how can the community help? Grab those smartphones and download the Pixelstix app and use it to interact and find your favorite mural. The more traffic an artist receives the more data they are able to obtain to show potential clients and the city that what they create has lasting impacts long after the paint dries.
All photos courtesy of Pixelstix.