Blog - Part 57

London’s National Gallery of Art on the iPhone

Post author By arybin
Post date June 17, 2009
2 Comments on London’s National Gallery of Art on the iPhone

Collections from London’s National Gallery are the first to ever be accessible via a downloadable iPhone application. iPhone owners can now explore the museum’s galleries from anywhere in the world using a free (for a limited time) Pentimento application called Love Art.

Making use of special iPhone features such as its large touch-screen, zoom, Rolodex and scrollable menus, Love Art offers a playful exploration of the collection, together with informative commentaries. The paintings are showcased to the best advantage using high-resolution images on the iPhone’s excellent-quality screen. Due to a tactile interface the experience gained through this application is not only highly enjoyable, but also lets you zoom in to see details that are often missed.

For more information, read this review from Applelinks, or see the National Gallery’s press release about Love Art.

Innovative Technology

Take an Emotion Walk

Post author By arybin
Post date June 2, 2009

London-based artist Christian Nold has developed a community project called Bio-Mapping. More than 1,500 volunteers in San Francisco, Greenwich and Stockport have been wired with what Nold calls a Galvanic Skin Response sensor (a lie detector connected to a Global Positioning System). Volunteers then walk around their communities while the devices record their physiological responses. This data is then annotated by participants and visualized in colorful maps, both online and in print. Nord’s next Bio-Mapping project will take place in Tokyo.

How will our perceptions of our community and environment change when we become aware of our own and each others intimate body states?

Exhibitions Modern - Contemporary Museums

Debut of the Modern Wing at the Art Institute of Chicago

Post author By arybin
Post date May 19, 2009

The much-anticipated Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago is now open. Enjoy free admission through Friday, May 22, and don’t forget to contribute to the Greater Chicago Food Depository by bringing a canned good or nonperishable item along.

Click here for a peek at current exhibitions in the museum’s newest space, including recent work by artist Cy Twombly.

Moving Images Presentation VRC

Capturing Stills from Video

Post author By arybin
Post date May 13, 2009
2 Comments on Capturing Stills from Video

The VLC Media Player is an open source multimedia player for various audio and video formats, as well as streaming video and DVDs. Free to download, it works well with both Macs and PCs. The media player includes a Snapshot feature (under the Video menu) which allows you to capture stills from video. Just pause at the suitable frame and take the snapshot. These snapshots may then be used in PowerPoint, Keynote, or OIV presentations.

For more information about the VideoLAN project (including the VLC Media Player), click here.

Tags tutorials

Innovative Technology Moving Images Museums Presentation

ArtsConnectEd

Post author By arybin
Post date May 8, 2009

ArtsConnectEd, a joint project between the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the Walker Art Center, launched in Beta on May 4, 2009.

The new ArtsConnectEd is completely redesigned as a dynamic and social Web site that empowers teachers, students, and museum educators in the creation and sharing of content and ideas in the process of learning about art.

The new Art Finder offers an intuitive and powerful interface to the combined collections of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA) and Walker Art Center (WAC), encouraging both wide exploration and in-depth research. Users can browse over 90,000 works of art, watch and listen to more than 1,000 video and audio records, and read thousands of articles and object labels. All of these resources can be collected and arranged as interactive presentations for personal or classroom use, which can in turn be published for others to use. ArtsConnectEd also allows users to enhance their presentations with video and photos from services such as Flickr, YouTube, and the new ArtBabble video site.

Aesthetics Innovative Technology

Automated Aesthetic Judgments

Post author By mmacken
Post date May 7, 2009
1 Comment on Automated Aesthetic Judgments

How would you rate this image?

James Z. Wang, associate professor of information sciences and technology, is one of the principal researchers on the Aesthetic Quality Inference Engine (ACQUINE), a system that judges the aesthetic quality of digital images. Wang said this tool is a significant first step in recognizing human emotional reaction to visual stimulus.

ACQUINE, which has been in development since 2005 and was launched in April 2009, can be found online at http://acquine.alipr.com. Users can upload their own images for rating or test the system by providing a link to any image online. The system provides an aesthetic rating within seconds. more…

Tags audience, viewers

Innovative Technology News

World Digital Library

Post author By arybin
Post date April 28, 2009

The Library of Congress, with the help of UNESCO, recently launched the World Digital Library, an online collection of primary source materials. Contributions have been made by partner institutions in many countries. Content includes, but is not limited to: maps, manuscripts, prints, photographs, architectural drawings, and recordings. The site functions in seven different languages and can be browsed by Place, Time, Topic, Type of Item, and Institution. Browsing results within the Arts & Recreation topic, for example, can then be narrowed by place, time, additional topics, item type, or institution.

Objectives of the World Digital Library include:

Promote international and intercultural understanding;

Expand the volume and variety of cultural content on the Internet;

Provide resources for educators, scholars, and general audiences;

Build capacity in partner institutions to narrow the digital divide within and between countries.

Many high-quality images are available for download. Some rare books are also scanned in their entirety and available as PDFs, including this second Augsburg edition of Aesop’s Fables.

Tags digital library, images, manuscripts, rare books

Innovative Technology Modern - Contemporary Moving Images Museums

Art Videos Online: ArtBabble.org

Post author By arybin
Post date April 8, 2009
1 Comment on Art Videos Online: ArtBabble.org

This week the Indianapolis Museum of Art announced the launch of ArtBabble.org, an interactive website dedicated to art-based video content.

It is intended to showcase video art content in high quality format from a variety of sources and perspectives… ArtBabble was created so others will join in spreading the world of art through video.

Videos are organized by Series (such as “Behind the Scenes at MoMa“), Channels (similar to subject areas, with a large number of videos about Contemporary Art), Artists, and ArtBabble Partners. Videos can even be exported as MP4s for offline play on computers or Ipods — just click on the Ipod icon beneath a selected video to download.

Contributing institutions include Art21, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, and The New York Public Library.

American Innovative Technology Moving Images

Texas Archive of the Moving Image

Post author By arybin
Post date April 2, 2009

Interested in film preservation, American cultural heritage, or Texas? Take a look at the Texas Archive of the Moving Image (TAMI).

TAMI is an independent 501c3 organization dedicated to the preservation of Texas film heritage. Every year, home movies, television programs, and locally produced films are lost as these visual records of Texas rapidly decompose or are simply thrown away. TAMI works to discover these “orphan” films and to educate the public about moving image history and contemporary preservation practice.

You can search TAMI’s Video Library for your hometown, famous Texans, historical events and more, or click on “Random Film” for a surprise. Contributions from the public are also welcome; if you see someone or something you recognize in a film, become a TAMI Tagger. Some of our favorite films include Paper and I (an educational film from the Texas Forest Service) and Knife Throwing Family, which speaks for itself.