Human Artists Research Articles

Anonymity and evolutionary art

Human artists typically have a personal signature, by which their individual authorship can be recognized. Modernist artists tried to avoid such idiosyncracies, focussing on abstract structure instead-and welcomed computers, accordingly. But even those computer artists who have deliberately tried to lose their signature have not managed to do so. Perhaps evolutionary methods might help? Reasons are discussed both for believing and for doubting that evolutionary art could be wholly free from personal signatures.

미술가들의 음영 표현 특성과 CG 쉐이딩 알고리즘 간의 상관관계 분석

최근 컴퓨터 그래픽스와 사용자의 인지를 결합한 다양한 연구들이 진행되고 있다. Cole 등은 미술가들의 라인 드로잉 데이터를 수집하여 기존의 CG(Computer-Generated) 라인 드로잉 알고리즘들이 미술가들의 드로잉 특성을 반영하고 있는지 비교하고, 사용자들이 어떤 라인 드로잉 알고리즘의 결과에서 형태를 효과적으로 인지하는지 평가하는 실험을 수행하였다. 그러나 라인 드로잉 알고리즘의 결과보다 BRDF 쉐이딩 모델이 적용된 결과에서 형태를 더욱 효과적으로 인지한다는 결과를 보였는데, 이는 음영이 형태 정보를 전단하기에 더욱 효과적인 요소임을 반증한다. 따라서 본 논문에서는 물체에서 인지한 음영과 미술가들의 음영 표현, 그리고 CG 쉐이딩 알고리즘 간의 상관관계에 대해서 연구한다. 특히, 미술가들의 음영 표현 특성과 CG 쉐이딩 알고리즘에서 나타나는 특성에 초점을 맞추고 이를 정량적으로 분석한다. 본 논문에서 수집한 실험 데이터 및 분석 결과는 효과적인 형태 전달을 목적으로 하는 새로운 CG 쉐이딩 알고리즘을 설계하는데 활용한 것으로 기대된다. Recently, several researchers have attempted to combine human visual perception and computer graphics. Cole et. al. suggest the study results in which line drawing algorithm in computer graphics characterize the properties of line drawing made by artists. The paper also evaluates CG line drawing algorithms depending on whether people recognize effectively specific 3D shape from the image made by those CG line drawing algorithms. However, human recognizes the shape of objects more effectively in image made by BRDF shading model than line drawing algorithm. It means that the shading factor is important to recognize shape with human perception. In this paper, we analyze the correlation between shading made by human artists and that made by CG shading algorithms. The study is to characterize the mathematical properties of artists' shading and CG shading. This type of analysis can guide the future development of new CG shading algorithm in computer graphics for the purpose of shape perception.

Exploring a parameterised portrait painting space

We overview our interdisciplinary work building parameterised knowledge domains and their authoring tools that allow for expression systems, which move through a space of painterly portraiture. With new computational systems it is possible to conceptually dance, compose and paint in higher-level conceptual spaces. We are interested in building art systems that support exploring these spaces and in particular report on our software-based artistic toolkit and resulting experiments using parameter spaces in face-based new media portraiture. This system allows us to parameterise the open cognitive and vision-based methodology that human artists have intuitively evolved over centuries into a domain toolkit to explore aesthetic realisations and interdisciplinary questions about the act of portrait painting as well as the general creative process. These experiments and questions can be explored by traditional and new media artists, art historians, cognitive scientists and other scholars.

Incorporating characteristics of human creativity into an evolutionary art algorithm

A perceived limitation of evolutionary art and design algorithms is that they rely on human intervention; the artist selects the most aesthetically pleasing variants of one generation to produce the next. This paper discusses how computer generated art and design can become more creatively human-like with respect to both process and outcome. As an example of a step in this direction, we present an algorithm that overcomes the above limitation by employing an automatic fitness function. The goal is to evolve abstract portraits of Darwin, using our 2nd generation fitness function which rewards genomes that not just produce a likeness of Darwin but exhibit certain strategies characteristic of human artists. We note that in human creativity, change is less choosing amongst randomly generated variants and more capitalizing on the associative structure of a conceptual network to hone in on a vision. We discuss how to achieve this fluidity algorithmically.

Relational IBL in classical music

It is well known that many hard tasks considered in machine learning and data mining can be solved in a rather simple and robust way with an instance- and distance-based approach. In this work we present another difficult task: learning, from large numbers of complex performances by concert pianists, to play music expressively. We model the problem as a multi-level decomposition and prediction task. We show that this is a fundamentally relational learning problem and propose a new similarity measure for structured objects, which is built into a relational instance-based learning algorithm named DISTALL. Experiments with data derived from a substantial number of Mozart piano sonata recordings by a skilled concert pianist demonstrate that the approach is viable. We show that the instance-based learner operating on structured, relational data outperforms a propositional k-NN algorithm. In qualitative terms, some of the piano performances produced by DISTALL after learning from the human artist are of substantial musical quality; one even won a prize in an international ‘computer music performance’ contest. The experiments thus provide evidence of the capabilities of ILP in a highly complex domain such as music.

Studying a creative act with computers: Music performance studies with automated discovery methods

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how advanced computer methods may be able to provide new insights into a complex creative activity such as music performance. The context is an inter-disciplinary research project in which Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods are used to analyse patterns in performances by human artists. In asking how the computer can take us closer to an understanding of creativity in music performance, we identify two pertinent research strategies within our project: the use of machine learning algorithms that try to discover common performance principles and thus help separate the “rationally explainable” aspects of performance from the more genuinely “creative” ones, and the use of data mining methods that can discover, visualise and describe performance patterns that seem to be characteristic of the style of particular artists and thus may be more directly related to their individual creativity. Some preliminary results are briefly presented that are indicative of the kinds of discoveries these algorithms can make. Some general issues regarding (musical) creativity and its relation to Artificial Intelligence are also briefly discussed.

3D Cable‐Based Cartesian Metrology System

AbstractA novel cable‐based metrology system is presented wherein six cables are connected in parallel from ground‐mounted string pots to the moving object or tool of interest. Cartesian pose can be determined for feedback control and other purposes by reading the lengths of the six cables via the string pots and using closed‐form forward pose kinematics. This article focuses on a sculpting metrology tool, assisting a human artist in generating a piece from a computer model, but applications exist in manufacturing, rapid prototyping, robotics, and automated construction. We present experimental data to demonstrate the operation of our system, we study the absolute accuracy and also measurement resolution, and we discuss various error sources. The proposed real‐time cable‐based metrology system is less complex and more economical than existing commercial Cartesian metrology technologies. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Public Participation: Technology and Democracy

Computerized visualization methods offer planners and architects some new ways to support and facilitate democratic decision-making. However, the uses of this technology in public participation are just beginning to be explored. This paper describes a community planning process in which a combination of high- and low-tech visualization methods—a Geographic Information System (GIS) and a human artist—was used to increase public participation and draw out local knowledge.

Combining Digital and Traditional Visualisation Techniques in Community-Based Planning and Design

Public participation is a key component in environmental planning and design. Yet too often, architects and planners are not equipped with effective tools and visualisation techniques to generate meaningful public input. Architects and planners are increasingly turning to computer technology; computer imaging can be used to support exploration of alternatives by enabling community members to visualise opportunities and scenarios before committing to a course of action (McClure, 1997). This paper explains how a Geographic Information System (GIS) and an artist played critical roles in a participatory planning process in Chicago's Pilsen neighbourhood. The GIS provided community leaders, planners, architects and designers with an interactive visualisation of the neighbourhood context. It also provided examples of design prototypes in relation to their geographic context. The artist, on the other hand, translated neighbourhood residents' ideas into quick sketches, merging their ideas and thoughts into a shared neighbourhood vision. Both of these elements – the GIS and the human artist – provided a means for residents to visualise past, present, and future neighbourhood conditions, enabling them to have a greater voice in the design of their neighbourhood. Our findings suggest that effective visualisation may be achieved through combining traditional and computerised visualisation tools, and that effective visualisation could assist in bridging the gap between professional designers and non-designers.

“Out of disegno invention is born” — Drawing a convincing figure in Renaissance Italian Art

An important artistic topic of Italian Renaissance painting was the rendering of the human figure. As leading actors in a painted narrative, figures had to convince beholders of the reality of the matter depicted with appropriated attitudes and gestures. This article is about two ways of drawing or rather constructing the human figure artists developed to achieve this goal. The first was only an adaptation to an old method: because of the rather simple and coarse elements used, constructions often resulted in faulty pictures and were for that matter often criticized. As this article will show, the second method involved a new and very successful drawing skill, which not just required a different kind of knowledge of visual forms but of procedures of moving the hand, too.

The importance of ‘mass’ in line drawings of faces

AbstractPrevious research (Davies, Ellis and Shepherd, 1978; Rhodes, Brennan and Carey, 1987) has shown that accurate line drawings of familiar faces are identified rather poorly. However, artists can produce lifelike portraits with pen and ink, and Pearson and Robinson (1985) described an automatic method for producing computer‐drawn sketches (‘cartoons’) of faces which appear very similar to those produced by a human artist. In this paper we show that subjects can identify famous faces depicted in such computer‐drawn ‘cartoons’ almost as well as full grey‐scale images. The cartoon algorithm comprises two components. One component draws lines at the locations of intensity changes corresponding to luminance valleys and edges (the ‘valledge’ detector). The other component applies a ‘threshold’ to the original intensity distribution, and replaces any area darker than threshold with black. Thus the full cartoon contains both ‘line’ and ‘mass’. Neither the valledges nor the threshold components alone were as well identified as full cartoons containing both components. The results suggest that the addition of the threshold component adds significantly to the identifiability of line drawings of faces.

Images from Computer

Computer art and computer graphics have developed along lines different from those anticipated twenty years ago. That was the time when Michael Noll was making variations on a theme of Mondrian and Charles Csuri transformed Leonardo's Vitruvian Man (see Figure 1) by pulling him in various directions as if on a sheet of rubber. Since then, computer graphics have found less application in art than in the visualisation of scientific experiments, in design and in television commercials. Computer graphics are still either very simple or enormously time-consuming and expensive. As for the computer as an independent artist, no candidate has emerged so far, but the possibility of such development has already been envisaged by human artists, program designers and philosophers.

Images from Computer

Computer art and computer graphics have developed along lines different from those anticipated twenty years ago. That was the time when Michael Noll was making variations on a theme of Mondrian and Charles Csuri transformed Leonardo's Vitruvian Man (see Figure 1) by pulling him in various directions as if on a sheet of rubber. Since then, computer graphics have found less application in art than in the visualisation of scientific experiments, in design and in television commercials. Computer graphics are still either very simple or enormously time-consuming and expensive. As for the computer as an independent artist, no candidate has emerged so far, but the possibility of such development has already been envisaged by human artists, program designers and philosophers.

Transformations in classical art theory: From ‘poetic composition’ to ‘picturesque composition’

Abstract Few cultivated persons in the seventeenth century would have understood an idea of art which did not include a concept of beauty derived from a union of form and matter. God, the supreme Artist, had made the world beautiful by imposing the divine ideas upon matter, and by bringing all the variety - sometimes bizarre variety- of His creation into a perfect unity. Such was the original Artist's activity. Should not human artists, painters of pictures and composers of dramatic and epic poems, make beautiful works by the same means? Could they not, sharing the divine rationality, order even apparent imperfections to be part of the beauty of a whole in a work of art? Could not even violence, the ugliness and disorder of real life be made beautiful? All manner of dreadful deaths and terrible sights of woe? Crucifixions, battles, decaying and deformed bodies, all the grim matter of tragedy?

“Grateful Vicissitude” in Paradise Lost

Milton's casual use of the word “vicissitude” provides a simple measure of our differences from him and of our difficulty with his epic. At the opening of Book VI of Paradise Lost occurs a descriptive passage of relaxed intensity:There is a CaveWithin the Mount of God, fast by his Throne,Where light and darkness in perpetual roundLodge and dislodge by turns, which makes through Heav'nGrateful vicissitude, like Day and Night. (4-8)The phrase “Grateful vicissitude” delays or shocks almost any modern reader, for whatever our dictionary-makers say, it has been many years since “vicissitude” was used in ordinary English speech or writing in other than a pejorative sense. In Paradise Lost, however, “vicissitude” is always “grateful;” it is change, variety, movement, the mark of vitality and joy characteristic of both the divine and the human master artist's work. We cannot properly read the poem unless we can share imaginatively, at least for the moment, Milton's conception.

Toward an Evaluation of Music

TOWARD AN EVALUATION OF MUSIC ~HERE is general acknowledgment that the music of _l the eighteenth century achieved a certain perfection.· Biographers, critics, theorists and, most significant of an, composers themselves have testified to the excellence of the music of that periodo It is worth investigating, therefore, why-so far it can be determined-the music of the eighteenth century achieved this perfection for, although the fact of this perfection is common knowledge, an explanation of it is not usually set forth in an analytic manner, Leo, in relation to sound principles of art and to principles of music specifically. Such an investigation is worth while, not merely as a matter of historical interest, but insofar as it may be instrumental in seeing how music of the present time can likewise achieve a different, but nevertheless related, excellenceo To do this, ever, we must examine, at least briefly, sound principles of art both generally and specifically. This is not an easy task, since it requires both philosophy of art and a concrete knowledge of music. Too often, in ventures of this kind, music suffers from non-musical philosophers or from non-philosophical musicians neither of which, alone, is adequate for a critical examination of music. vVe must try, then, to combine both approaches and see if something of a reasoned explanation can be given for the perfection of eighteenth century music and what light this may throw upon twentieth century music. Let us begin with a few things about art· in general. AH art arises from something very natural in us. It is based on the natural desire we have to imitate or to make representations . This begins in our earliest childhoodo We delight in the representations we make of things, actions, and people around us. It is also the first way we begin to learn things, for we grasp something in these representations which we did not 323 JOHN A. OESTERLE previously know. From this universal desire of imitation springs·our interest and delight in art, for art itself is simply the developed formation of this natural tendency in us to make or behold imitations of things around us. And so we say that art imitates nature. As with all statements which are fundamentally true, a superficial understanding of them makes them appear obviously false. The superficial understanding of" art imitates nature" is that:artcopiesnature. Now, the statement "art copies nature" is foreign to the whole notion of ·art and should be rejected. But, in rejecting a false meaning of " art imitates nature," the principle that art imitates nature is often rejected altogether. This, however, merely goes from one error to another. The correct meaning of "art imitates nature" consists in understanding1that art has two points of origin-not just one. One origin of the representation iµ art is in nature, understanding " nature " broadly to mean anything external to the mind of the artist. The other origin is in the imagination and mind of the ttrtist. To recognize only the origin in nature is to reduce imitation in art to copying-and this is false. But to recognize only an origin in the mind of the artist-as though he made something entirely new-is to attribute absolute creation to a human artist and to make him God. This is stupid as well as false. Moreover, all-the ideas and images in the human mind ultimately derive from reality outside the mind and this, basically, is why art must have a relation of imitation to nature~ Consequently, art imitates nature in the sense that the artist makes a representation of something which could exist in nature, but which actually does not. To imitate nature, then, does not mean to make a likeness of things precisely as they are in reality. Shakespeare's Hamlet, for example, is not just a person who existed historically; the play would fail as art if that were so. Hamlet is a type of man realized in the representation made by Shakespeare. In this way. we see how art, in imitating nature, also perfects nature; it adds an intelligibility TOWARD AN EVALUATION OF MUSIC 8!t5 and beauty not found in nature as such. This...

God and the World

I Suppose that most believers in God, if asked what is the relation of God to the world, would reply that he is its Creator and its Lord. But, like all the language in which we express our religious convictions, the language of this reply is plainly metaphorical. It calls up the picture of a human artificer or artist, the image of a human ruler or proprietor. And yet it needs but little reflection to perceive that there must be essential differences between a human artificer or artist, who has a material to work in ready to his hand, and One who makes all things, as it is said, “ out of nothing “; between a human ruler or proprietor.