Art-ificial: The Virtual Virtuosos Redefining Creativity

Imperial College London computer scientist Simon Colton has created Painting Fool, software that can seek artistic inspiration and has basic creativity.

The Painting Fool is one of a growing number of computer programs that have creative abilities. Although the Painting Fool software does not physically apply paint to canvas, it simulates many styles digitally, from collage to paint strokes. The software runs its own Web searches and scans social media sites to produce art that is meaningful to the audience. The Painting Fool also is simulating imagination by creating pictures from scratch.

Meanwhile, composer David Cope has developed Experiments in Musical Intelligence (EMI), software that analyzes already created musical scores and produces new material in the same style. Audiences who have heard EMI's compositions have been moved to tears and classical music experts have been fooled into thinking they are listening to genuine pieces of music. However, when audiences found out the music was produced by EMI, they were outraged.

Yale University psychologist Paul Bloom suggests that part of the pleasure humans get from art comes from the perception of the creative process behind it.

From New Scientist 
View Full Article

Abstracts Copyright © 2012 Information Inc. , Bethesda, Maryland, USA