GalleryControl

One switch to open your museum.

Production-ready — Daily driver at ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe since 2025. Battle-tested with 50+ devices across multiple exhibitions.

GalleryControl is a centralized control system for museums and galleries. It replaces hours of walking around with remotes or juggling browser tabs with a single, unified interface to manage all your exhibition devices.

What it does

• Turn exhibitions on/off with a single click
• Schedule opening hours - devices turn on/off automatically
• Monitor device health - see what's online, offline, or needs attention
• Protect artwork - automated shutdown when sensors detect issues
• Control any device - projectors, power outlets, computers, custom hardware

Supported Devices

Protocol	Devices	Examples
PJLink	Projectors, displays	Epson, Panasonic, NEC, Sony
NETIO	Smart power outlets	NETIO PowerPDU, 4All
ANEL	Power distribution	ANEL NET-PwrCtrl
Shell	Any SSH-accessible device	Linux PCs, Raspberry Pi, Mac

Quick Start

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/zkmkarlsruhe/gallerycontrol.git
cd gallerycontrol

# Create environment file
cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env and set a secure DB_PASSWORD

# Start services
docker compose up -d

# Open the UI
open http://localhost:8000

Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    GalleryControl                        │
│  ┌─────────────┐  ┌─────────────┐  ┌─────────────┐      │
│  │   Web UI    │  │  REST API   │  │  Scheduler  │      │
│  │   (React)   │  │  (FastAPI)  │  │   (cron)    │      │
│  └─────────────┘  └─────────────┘  └─────────────┘      │
│         │                │                │              │
│  ┌──────┴────────────────┴────────────────┴──────┐      │
│  │              Device Managers                   │      │
│  │  ┌────────┐ ┌────────┐ ┌────────┐ ┌────────┐  │      │
│  │  │ PJLink │ │ NETIO  │ │  ANEL  │ │ Shell  │  │      │
│  └──┴────────┴─┴────────┴─┴────────┴─┴────────┴──┘      │
│                          │                               │
│  ┌───────────────────────┴───────────────────────┐      │
│  │              PostgreSQL Database               │      │
│  └────────────────────────────────────────────────┘      │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
                           │
          ┌────────────────┼────────────────┐
          ▼                ▼                ▼
    ┌──────────┐    ┌──────────┐    ┌──────────┐
    │ Projector│    │  Power   │    │   PC     │
    │ (PJLink) │    │ (NETIO)  │    │ (Shell)  │
    └──────────┘    └──────────┘    └──────────┘

Features

Device Control

• Turn individual devices on/off
• Group devices by artwork and exhibition
• Staggered startup to prevent power surges
• Verification that devices actually turned off

Scheduling

• Define opening hours per exhibition
• Automatic on/off at scheduled times
• One-shot tasks for special events
• Per-device schedule overrides

Monitoring

• Real-time device state polling
• Projector lamp hours tracking
• Connection health monitoring
• Email alerts for failures

Protection

• Sensor integration (temperature, humidity)
• Automatic shutdown when thresholds exceeded
• Configurable protection rules per artwork

Configuration

Configuration is managed via YAML files in gallerycontrol/config/:

# config/default.yaml (excerpt)
server:
  host: 0.0.0.0
  port: 8000

monitoring:
  poll_interval_seconds: 60        # Normal device-state polling
  fast_poll_interval_seconds: 30   # During command verification

email:
  smtp_host: "${SMTP_HOST}"
  recipients: []                   # leave empty to disable status emails

production.yaml overrides default.yaml when ENVIRONMENT=production. See the configuration guide for the full reference.

API

Once running, visit http://localhost:8000/docs for interactive API documentation.

Key Endpoints

# Turn on an exhibition
POST /api/control/exhibition/{id}/on

# Turn off an exhibition (with verification)
POST /api/control/exhibition/{id}/off

# Get exhibition state
GET /api/state/exhibition/{id}

# Fast lane - external triggers (artwork-level, GET or POST)
POST /external/fast/artwork/{id}/on
POST /external/fast/artwork/{id}/off

Development

cd gallerycontrol
poetry install
poetry run uvicorn gallerycontrol.main:app --reload

Running Tests

poetry run pytest
poetry run pytest --cov=gallerycontrol

Deployment

See examples/zkm-deployment/ for a production deployment example with Traefik reverse proxy.

ANEL Runner

ANEL devices require UDP broadcast access. For network-isolated deployments, run the ANEL Runner as a separate service (built from gallerycontrol/Dockerfile.anel-runner, listens on :8001) on a host that can reach the ANEL devices, then point the main service at it:

# On the host with UDP access to the ANEL devices
docker build -f gallerycontrol/Dockerfile.anel-runner -t gallerycontrol-anel-runner ./gallerycontrol
docker run -d -p 8001:8001 --name anel-runner gallerycontrol-anel-runner

# Then set on the main service:
#   ANEL_RUNNER_URL=http://<runner-host>:8001

Contributing

Contributions welcome! See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines. Security issues: see SECURITY.md.

Author

Created and maintained by Marc Schütze @ ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe.

License

MIT License - Copyright (c) 2026 Marc Schütze. See LICENSE for details.

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Developed at

Developed by Marc Schütze at ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, a publicly funded cultural institution exploring the intersection of art, science, and technology.

Part of ZKM Open Source · Copyright (c) 2026 Marc Schütze @ ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe